Conference quark::mennotes-v1

    More symptoms:
    
    Realising that:
    
    	Your children are growing up and don't need you any more
    
    	You and your wife don't have all that much in common
    
    	Your long term financial (kids college, retirement) picture is
         bleak.
    
    	You feel unappreciated by your children, wife and or boss/company.
    
    	You feel like a source of income only with little other value.
    
    	Fatigue, irritableness
    
    Steve

    Actually, mid-life crisis doesn't neccessarily come about in middle
    age, but may creep in at different times in a person's life.  A
    crisis is nothing more than a change or a time when a person needs
    change and needs to make decisions.
    
    Generally speaking, I would imagine that about 35 or so, it all
    depends on when whatever pattern you've been following, there comes
    a time when a person begins to ponder on his past and on his future.
     Perhaps a bit of fright that life is going quickly and you haven't
    done all that you wanted to yet.  Maybe you wish for youthfulness
    and seek young friends to fulfill this restoration or maybe you
    your job isn't all it was cracked up to be, whatever.
    
    I think maturity can be a crisis.  I think I went through a "crisis"
    about a couple of years ago, when I decided to finish school and
    bring in a decent income to provide for my family.  Then again,
    this "mid-life" crisis can happen and rehappen so many different
    times.  I'm sure to hit another.
                                    
    It's not neccessary that a "crisis" is destined to tear a couple
    apart, unless these individuals are unable to catch up with each
    other.   Changes and crisis just need to be recognized and perhaps
    welcomed as more beginnings.

    A quote from "Seasons of a Man's Life" by Levinson, page 198-199
    
    Other men in their early forties are aware of going through important
    changes and know that the character of their lives will be appreciably
    different.  They attempt to understand the nature of these changes, to
    comt to terms with the griefs and losses, and to make use of the
    possibilities for growing and enriching their lives.  For them,
    however, the process (Midlife tranisition) is not a highly painful one. 
    They are in a manageable transition rather than a crisis.
    
    But for the great majority of men this period evoides tumultuous
    sstruggles within the self and with the external world.  Their Mid Life
    Transisiton is a time of moderate or severe crisis.  Every aspect of
    their lives comes into question, and they are horrified by much that is
    revealed.  They are full of recriminations against themselves and
    others.  They cannot go on as before, abut need time to choose a new
    path or modify the old one.
    
    A profound reappraisal of this kind cannot be a cvool, intellectual
    process.  It must involve emotional turmoil, despair, the sens of not
    knowing where to turn or of being stagnant and unable to move at all. A
    man in this state often makes false starts.  He tentatively tests a
    variety of new choices, not only out of confusion or impulsiveness,
    but, equally, out of a nee dto explore, to see what is possible, to
    find out how it feels to engage in a particular love relationship,
    occupation or solitary pursuit.  Every genuine reappraisal must be
    agonizing, because it challenges the illusions and  vested interests on
    which the existing (life) structure is based.
    
    There is more in this chapter, but basically Levinson says that
    all pass through this Mid LIfe Transistion (around 40), but it becomes
    a crisis when the man cannot get through it smoothly.
    
    Paul
    

    re.5
    Well, I'm not a psycologist so I'm not one to count on for a clinical
    opinion.   But from what I have learned in a few psycology and
    sociology classes, there are 2 theories or views on the "life span"
    and its cycles.  One allows flexibility and the other doesn't. 
    Generally, "Mid-life crisis" is not a fact but a term that has come
    up to explain what many folks come to around the middle of their
    careers, families and the like and generally you are about 40+/-
    at this time.                                   
    
    Just like - not everyone matures automatically at age 18 or 21.

    Mid-life crisis is a myth...just like the 7-year itch.

    
    Omigod, I living through a myth!
    
    Sorry, Kathy, but it ain't no myth.  
    
    						- Vick

I agree with .8.

I had heard the same thing, that the mid-life crisis is just a catchy name
for another non-phenomenon, but I am currently accumulating much first-hand
evidence to the contrary.

And it hurts.


Ben

    Does anyone recall the book by Gale Sheehey (sp) called Passages?
    
    She described a lot of the 'phases' that adults go through as their
    lives change. It's been a while since I last read it. I think I need
    to reread the part about being 40+ :-}...
    
    and I agree with .8 and .9 (hi Ben) that such a crisis is indeed
    real and it is painful to go through. I'm also accumulating much
    first hand evidence.
    
    Bonnie

    No, it ain't no myth.  For me it was not so much the realization of
    the accumulations; it was the realization that I would have to do
    a learned evaluation of my life situation EVERY DAY.  It took so much
    work (mentally and emotionally) that the aspect of going through that
    every day was mindboggling.

MLC is not a dysfunction
 its is realizing 
life does suck then you die.
If you knew you would live this long you would have taken better care
of your body.
Your children turn out just like you.
Space is room between you and the steering wheel.
Fun is something to tell the kids to have.
Sex is a three later acronym for something.
Opportunity knocks you out.
And that if you dont do something now you will never do it time is here and 
you forgot what you wanted to do.

    see also:
    topic 120
    
    I believe midlife crisis happens (I am speaking of how it happens to
    men here) - I've seen men get depressed, disoriented, almost as though
    they're floundering between what purposes they had when they were
    young, and new purposes they find as they grow older.  They seem to
    drift, confused, concerned, uncertain....
    
    Perhaps it is a signal (or it sounded to me like it was a signal) that
    they should invest in a new layer of themselves, wrest out of their
    hearts what it is they TRULY want to do, revisit their values, their
    goals, their purpose.
    
    It's sometimes frightening to watch someone who has been rock-solid for
    years go through this questioning process, sounding out new thoughts
    and finding out what, beneath who they are now, they wish to continue
    to be....what parts are vital and new to bring forth, what parts to let
    go.  It was frightening because this someone was a man I depended on,
    leaned on, and somehow had envisioned had it "all together".  When he
    confided in me that he was uncertain, and changing, it threw me, but I
    tried to be there for him as well as I could, to support him.
    
    -Jody
    

    Isen't it when men trade their SO for a woman half their age and a 
    fancy red sports car? Hardly a crisis in my opinion 8^)
    
    -j
    

    
    I was wondering about starting a topic on this a while back.
    At 38 11/12, I feel like I'm changing somehow inside, but it's
    hard to put a finger on it, let alone describe it.
    
    Admittedly, with two boys, 2 & 4, I don't have a lot of time
    to contemplate anything. And for all I know, they're making this
    easier. But when I do get a a chance to think, I notice
    my thinking has changed a bit. It seems slightly tempered with
    my increasing awareness of my mortality. I also find myself
    expressing myself differently. It used to be.."someday I'm gonna.."
    whereas now I'll say  "...if I live long enough..I'd like to...
    Hmmm....wonder what I'll be muttering at 60?
    
    
    						regards
    
    							Hank
    
    
     

(edited from 654.13)

A mid-life crisis is not 'adolescent behaviour', nor is it based on anything 
so flimsy as finding advancing age is suddenly 'unpleasant'.  Adolescents 
deny the reality of their mortality.  A true mid-life crisis is a *crisis* 
triggerd by the failure of existing denial techniques to repress the 
knowledge of one's impending death.

It is a time when men ask themselves just what they've achieved, and for many 
the answer is very little (of worth).  It is a time when they have to 
acknowledge the end of their dreams, and when you take a man's dreams away 
you often take away just that which keeps him going when things get 
toughest.  Women tend to suffer less from this psychological malaise because 
by this age they generally have achieved something of worth, ie., they have 
had children.  It is no accident that many of history's great women achieved 
their greatness after menopause, when the freedom from procreation allowed 
them to develop and exert their other talents.

For men it is different.  Socialised into a fiercely competitive environment, 
this is when they must contemplate the notion that society is going to 
discard them.  Retirement for some will be a boon, but for many men it is a 
death sentence.  It is no accident that most of history's great men achieved 
their greatness before their forties, and today we have no substantive way to 
assist men in the transition from youth to maturity (Jung defines a young man 
up to the age of 35).

In short, mid-life crisis is an existentialist crisis.  It is a crisis of 
meaning.  You look back and question the value of your life.  It's no good 
for someone else to tell you how wonderful you are or how successful you 
have been, because the meaning of those things can only be measured against 
your impending death.  

Our society brings men up to achieve material things, and after a lifetime 
of this discards them.  The forties are when men begin to acknowledge this, 
and they quite properly ask whether it's all really worth it.  

    re .16  David,
    
    Spoken like a true 28-year old!  :-)
    
    A couple of points regarding your assertions about women...
    
    1.  Not all women have children.
    
    2.  Most single women (and 2/3 of married US women) work outside the
        home.
    
    3.  Women don't just "suffer" from "psychological malaise" we suffer
        from very real physical, hormonal, etc. changes.
    
    A friendly word of advice: Don't post this in Womannotes...It'll get
    ripped to teensy weensy pieces!  :-)
    
    	deb

    
    "Passages" - yes, the best book I've read around this subject...
    
    For me, "mid life" crisis is only part of a continuum.
    I believe that we all have various crises during life - no one more
    important than the others. Yes, this mid-life thing is a famous one,
    but it can hit anywhere through the 30's...age doesn't seem to be
    too important.
    There are also adolescent crises (that whole "becoming an adult" thing)
    and further crisis peaks at points through the whole of your life.
    
    I suspect that these "crunch points" are to do with the tension between
    our human need to grow and change and the societal pressures trying
    to keep us in the same place.
    Change is the only constant.
    It is also painful - involving looking at the unknown, taking risks,
    growth and often rigorous self-examination.
    Not surprisingly, it's easier for everyone involved if we just try and
    ignore change, ignore growth, find a quiet and comfortable place and
    "settle down". Marriage (as it seems to be most often implimented),
    a steady job, "putting down roots" are all societally approved ways
    of ballasting yourself against change....
    
    ...but they ignore one thing. Your needs change. You change. What you
    need to be happy and grow as an individual changes. And eventually
    the tension between the growing you and the static lifestyle elements
    just gets too much......and there you are. A Life Crisis.
    
    And they are real - and painful.
    They affect your whole view of the world, and also the other people
    who are tied into your current lifestyle structure - spouse, family,
    work colleagues. Unless you have an unusually flexible, healthy
    and change-orientated support network/lover there is going to be
    pain.
    
    IMO.
    'gail
    

    
    My father went through mid-life crisis.  It wasn't pretty.  I can
    directly relate his transitional time with that when his five
    children no longer needed him. (ie last one had graduated high school)
    
    If we think about how routine our lives become, if we let them, it's
    very easy to understand why people (both men and women) become
    depressed and long for change in their life.  I do believe mortality
    has a large part of this.  Why was I put on earth?  What was I supposed
    to accomplish?- Did I?  You look at people who have more than you and
    wonder why.
    
    I think the gentlemen who go for younger women during their crisis are
    simply looking for energy and excitement.  They want the spice of life
    back and are trying to get it by falling on the bandwagon, feeding off
    the young.  Women haven't been recognized for doing this other than
    Cher and her toy boys...and she's ridiculed to pieces.  I think if you
    remember what it was like to be young, carefree with minimal
    responsibilities it's this that you seek.  You want to regain your
    former self because you had fun when you were young...   I say this
    because I haven't seen the men looking for younger women to be also
    working on patents or that idea they had when they were 22 and fresh
    out of school.  I believe they act young but may find it difficult
    to *think* young.
                
    I think the trick here is to regain your youth with the person you fell
    in love with.  It's so sad to see relationships destroyed simply
    because the couple couldn't find youth in each other.  When I see older
    couples giggling and holding hands I know that they are survivors,
    they've fought and kept their love (for all I know they're newlyweds
    right?) I think it takes very strong couples to survive the mid-life/
    menopausal transition.  My hat's off to them.     

    re.19
    
    "Right on"!!

    RE 'PASSAGES"
    
    I read it and found it good. I sure wish I could remember more about it
    though. Another of the MLC problems, memory: short term.
    
    Steve

re .17

>    1.  Not all women have children.

Most do.  I never said all.  Gender roles are the culturalisation of 
biology, and that means femininity is inextricably bound up with procreation 
even when the biological role is not exercised.

>    2.  Most single women (and 2/3 of married US women) work outside the
>        home.

An historical anomoly.  It may presage the ways things will be, but it does 
not reflect how things have been.

>    3.  Women don't just "suffer" from "psychological malaise" we suffer
>        from very real physical, hormonal, etc. changes.

Mid-life crisis is psychological.  It is not the same thing as menopause, 
which is physiological.  While all women will go through menopause, which 
may or may not have profound individual psychological implications, it is 
not directly relevant here.  The mid-life crisis is so called because 
forty(ish) is around the time we wake up and realise that we have less time 
ahead of us than behind.  It affects more men than women because the modern 
post-industrial masculine role is so lacking in value.  It is a terrible 
thing to realise that over half your life is gone and much if not most has 
been wasted in large part because you spent it chasing society's chimeras.

>    A friendly word of advice: Don't post this in Womannotes...It'll get
>    ripped to teensy weensy pieces!  :-)

I don't think so.  The evidence is too weighty.  Feminist ideological 
objections will be based upon the similar distortions of reality that have 
served women so badly elsewhere (but that's a whole different rathole).  In 
any event, I don't respect Womannotes enough to bother noting there.

    .21
    
>>    2.  Most single women (and 2/3 of married US women) work outside the
>>        home.

>An historical anomoly.  It may presage the ways things will be, but it does 
>not reflect how things have been.

    Large numbers of women have worked outside of the home in factories
    and in other people's homes from before the time of the industrial
    revolution. It has only been the wealthy and the upper middle class
    that had the luxury of having the woman's sphere be only the home.
    Farmers wives and the wives of craftsmen, further, have worked at the 
    family business beside their spouses for time immemorial. (and I may
    add that the work that women did in their homes, even when they
    'only' worked at home was as difficult and often more demanding as
    to time involved than the work men did.
    

>>    A friendly word of advice: Don't post this in Womannotes...It'll get
>>    ripped to teensy weensy pieces!  :-)

>I don't think so.  The evidence is too weighty.  Feminist ideological 
>objections will be based upon the similar distortions of reality that have 
>served women so badly elsewhere (but that's a whole different rathole).  In 
>any event, I don't respect Womannotes enough to bother noting there.
    
    Given this attitude I'm just as glad that you don't post in Womannotes.
    Perhaps if you respected women more and listened to them more you
    might learn something.
    
    Bonnie

    Well said Bonnie. We can do without this sort of attitude in =wn='s,
    there are enough unwelcome's as it is.
    
    
    Jerome. 

.23

>    Large numbers of women have worked outside of the home in factories
>    and in other people's homes from before the time of the industrial
>    revolution. It has only been the wealthy and the upper middle class
>    that had the luxury of having the woman's sphere be only the home.
>    Farmers wives and the wives of craftsmen, further, have worked at the 
>    family business beside their spouses for time immemorial. (and I may
>    add that the work that women did in their homes, even when they
>    'only' worked at home was as difficult and often more demanding as
>    to time involved than the work men did.

I won't waste time on the incongruity of women working in factories before the 
industrial revolution.  All of what you have said is irrelevant to the point I 
made.  Their style and type of work was also secondary to the realisation of 
their biological potential, both because society expected it and they had no 
control over it.

>    Given this attitude I'm just as glad that you don't post in Womannotes.
>    Perhaps if you respected women more and listened to them more you
>    might learn something.

I thought you were more discerning, Bonnie.  Obviously I was wrong.  I don't 
need to 'respect' women more because nothing I have said indicates any 
disrespect.  You are projecting your own insecurities onto my words.  I made a 
specific statement about feminism, not about women.  It is my opinion, shared 
by more than a few contemporary feminist critiques, that despite the important 
gains made in particular by first-wave feminism, feminism to date has succeeded 
largely in simply moving women from a smaller cage to a larger one.  I also 
have thoughts not only about why this is so but what could be done about it.  
However, as I said earlier, that is a separate rathole.

Did you ever stop to consider that maybe I know quite a lot about feminist 
thought, have a lot of sympathy for feminism (generically), and that my own 
critique was based less on male chauvanism than on careful thought and study?

Damn right you didn't.  You read what you wanted to read, saw what you wanted 
to see.  And that's part of the reason why I don't waste my time in 
Womannotes.  I have no desire to expend energy defending myself simply because 
I am myself, let alone before anybody got around to anything I actually said.

>I won't waste time on the incongruity of women working in factories before the 
>industrial revolution.  
    
    	I suppose it depends on what you think the definition of "factory"
    is. The normal definition is rather on the lines of "a large building
    where you gather a lot of employees to manufacture something".
    
    	With that definition, England had factories (with women working in
    them) about 5 centuries before the industrial revolution. The "manu"
    bit of "manufacture" comes from the Latin for "hand", and both
    "manufacture" and "factories" predate the use of complex machinery to 
    make things.
    
    Early examples in England included woolen mills, since there were good
    economic reasons for gathering a group of employees round the power
    source of a water wheel and the abundant supply of water that would be
    in the same place.

Re: .25

Saying women should have children because of their biological potential, is
like saying men should be fathers because of their biological potential. 

There are far more men who are culpable for children than there are fathers.

    re: .16 and others
    
>It is a time when men ask themselves just what they've achieved, and for many 
>the answer is very little (of worth).  It is a time when they have to 
>acknowledge the end of their dreams, and when you take a man's dreams away 
>you often take away just that which keeps him going when things get 
>toughest.
    
    This seems to be the crux of those who refer to mid-life crisis. I
    don't doubt that this is true for some men. I reject that all, or even
    most, men go through this process in middle age.
    
    Anyone who examines his or her life regularly knows far earlier than
    middle age that dreams are just that, that he or she is not likely to
    be the best, the fastest, the smartest, or whatever -- and further,
    that most who do capture their "dream" find it illusory and
    unsatisfactory.
    
    I was happy at 24. But even then I knew that traditionally defined ambition
    was less important than self-knowledge, love, community, curiosity,
    flexibility, diletantism, family. This was no vast revelation, simply a
    reflection on life and what made me happy as I reacted with life. At
    44, I know more than at 24, am more confident, more physically fit,
    have a wife and 3 small children who are a delight, have more money,
    and so forth. What cause have I for a crisis?  Moreover, I look forward
    to old age, when my wife and I can embark on a new life together, new
    careers, new adventures, just as we have singly or together in the
    past.
    
    I don't think I am alone, or even unusual, in this respect.
    
    Kit
    
    

    Re:  .28
    Kit,
    If you reject that most men go through this, then you are going against
    the published literature on the subject.  You don't have to believe it
    if you don't want to.  I'm glad everything is going so well for you.
    I was in the best health of my life at 42, when I had a very bad
    medical year, including neck surgery, knee surgery, a skin cancer, and
    a couple of other unpleasant procedures.  It was the next year that
    my crisis started.  When you realize you too will run out of time,
    you sit back and ask what you want to do with what's left.  Maybe you 
    won't ever face a crisis.  I would have scoffed at such an idea at 42,
    because, like you I had always been philosophical about life.  So maybe 
    you won't have a crisis, and maybe you will.  But don't belittle the 
    experience for those of us who have or are having one, by implying that 
    no one has to have one who just keeps their mental shit together like you 
    have.  
    
    					- Vick

    in re .25

    Well the complaint about women in factories was answered
    satisfactorily, in note .26, although I actually left a comma out 
    and meant the 'before the industrial revolution' to refer
    to 'working in other people's homes'.
    
    and as far as my response to your message, what I saw in your note
    was rudeness. You were rude and insulting and demeaning to a file that
    I have known and moderated for 4 years. I still think, no matter how
    much of a feminist you say you are that you were rude.
    
    Bonnie

    Look, Bonnie, some of us guys know what's best for you women, whether
    you like it or not.  That makes us feminists, right?  Right guys?
    
    GUYS:  Yeah, yeah, right!
    
    But, of course, we wouldn't go down and talk about it on the womannotes
    file cause a lot of women down there just don't get the big picture, if
    you know what I mean. and we don't like getting yelled at, on account
    of we don't think it's very feminine to yell or disagree with guys.
    Right guys?
    
    GUYS:  Yeah, yeah, right!
    
    						- Vick
    
    :^)  :^)  :^)
    
    (P.S. I'm feeling particularly ornery today.)
    

  re .31

>>    (P.S. I'm feeling particularly ornery today.)
    
  On the other hand, you might be having a mid-life crisis.

					-- mardy

re .27

>Saying women should have children because of their biological potential, is
>like saying men should be fathers because of their biological potential. 

I did not say  or imply that.  Go immediately and take an intensive remedial 
course in English comprehension.

re .30

>    and as far as my response to your message, what I saw in your note
>    was rudeness. You were rude and insulting and demeaning to a file that
>    I have known and moderated for 4 years. I still think, no matter how
>    much of a feminist you say you are that you were rude.

This is crap.  I was not 'rude, insulting and demeaning'.  I shall repeat what 
I said and maybe this time you'll think about it.  I said that I don't respect 
Womannotes enough to note in it.  That was all I said in the note you first 
responded to.  You didn't bother to ask why, you jumped in with both feet and 
assumed I was a misogynist.

It is my right both to not respect a particular conference and to say so.

Secondly, you (and our 'ornery moron in .31) fail utterly to see the 
distinction between being anti-feminist and critiquing feminism.  To say, as I 
did, that feminist ideology has served women badly is not to say that the 
goals of feminism are necessarily bad.  Again, you leapt to conclusions and 
came a-giant-cropper.

All this came about because I (and others) assert that the mid-life crisis is 
general to men, and is qualitatively different to any problems associated with 
menopause.  This assumes, and is supported by reputable evidence, innate 
differences between the sexes as well as the the interactions of gender 
socialisation.  (Even annecdotally, in this string alone look at the number of 
men who jumped on the lone women who denied its validity).  Innate differences 
between the sexes is axiomatically opposed by the dominant contemporary 
feminist ideologies.  Just for the record I think that this is the essential 
stumbling block that has ground second-wave feminism to a halt, and I think it 
does no-one, men or women, any good.

> This is crap. I was not 'rude, insulting and demeaning'. 

Oh my oh my. I don't think I could have done better if I was
trying. Bravo! Bravo!

	-- Charles

Re: .33

> This is crap.  I was not 'rude...

Ah, but most of your replies have contained examples of rudeness. 

Take as an example, your reply to me.

> I did not say  or imply that.  Go immediately and take an intensive remedial 
> course in English comprehension.

The second sentance is an excellent example of rudeness.  You should have 
left your reply at the first sentance. Maybe you should take your own advice
and take an intensive course in good manners. 

BTW. Your language in notes, also leaves much to be desired, most people manage
to restrain their tendancy to bad language, if they are so inclined towards 
such.

re .36

Please collect all my notes where I used what you consider to be 'bad language'
and post them here.  ('Crap' does not figure highly on my own list of naughty 
words). 

Generally I find people complaining about 'rudeness' and suchlike are trying to
distract attention from their embarassment at having their nonsenses thoroughly
trashed.  There is a tragic tendency in this company not to call a spade a 
spade, a tendency I don't share.

>> I did not say  or imply that.  Go immediately and take an intensive remedial
>> course in English comprehension.

I don't consider this rude.  What I consider rude is people who don't have the 
decency to firstly, read only what is there, and secondly, think about it 
before replying and thus avoid making fools of themselves.  Such fundamental 
intellectual laziness is insulting to the original author and to every reader.

> I don't consider this rude.  

In that case it's not a remedial course you need, but a basic and obviously 
essential course in manners.

Re: .33/.27

>>Saying women should have children because of their biological potential, is
>>like saying men should be fathers because of their biological potential. 

>I did not say or imply that.

Ah, but you did, or at least implied that if a woman did not have children, she
couldn't be feminine. I just took your statement to it's logical conclusion.  
If what you said is not what you mean, then you should put what you mean more
clearly ! 

>Most do.  I never said all.  Gender roles are the culturalisation of 
>biology, and that means femininity is inextricably bound up with procreation 
>even when the biological role is not exercised.

Femininity has absolutely nothing to do with procreation.

Procreation is entirly biological.   Femininity is having the qualities of
a woman; thus the characteristic can be applied to anyone of either sex.

    re: .29
    
    Vick -  I don't mean to belittle the experience, only to suggest that I
    doubt that the experience is as general to men as you say.  I don't
    know anything about the published literature on the subject, so I admit
    I'm only going from gut feeling and experience.
    
    As for a serious medical problem -- or any other personal or
    professional problem -- these happen to people at any and all ages, and
    quite naturally affect their larger outlook on life.
    
    Kit

    in re ::simpson
    
    You have been projecting a great deal that I never said nor meant
    on my replies.
    
    Further if I walked up to you and said "I don't respect you enough
    to listen/talk to you", I think you'd find it rude, I know I would
    and did when you said that about Womannotes.
    
    I'm not embarassed nor have I had any nonsenses trashed in this notes
    string.
    
    Bonnie

    Besides, he called me a moron.  But I don't want to talk about it. 
    (Sniff).  I'm just going to go somewhere and sulk.
    
    					- Vick

    Kit,  I decided making two enemies in one day was too much.  So I'll
    forgive you.  :^)
    
    The books I've read say that most men go through a mid-life crisis in
    different degrees of intensity.  Typical catalysts for the crisis
    include (a) achieving one's lifetime goals, (b) realizing one won't
    ever achieve those goals, (c) last kid leaving home, (d) marital
    problems, (e) physical decline, (f) sexual decline.  I'm sure I could
    think of some others.  The literature also says that the mid-life
    crisis is very similar to adolescense, in that it is a troublesome
    time that is necessary for growth. 
    						- Vick

    RE .40
    
    It happens for the reasons already explained in this note. Your gut 
    feeling is incorrect. It is pretty well documented.
    
    Steve
    

    it's small comfort to see that men are not the only ones who
    occassionally lose it and by focusing on a very small part of what
    somebody says manage to pick a fight.

    I agree with VMSSPT::NICHOLS that fights seem to be being picked here
    over God only knows what.  If Simpson says he/she is not being "rude"
    that's really funny.  The *tone* of all his/her replies is rude from 
    beginning to end.  That should be and probably is obvious to most people.

    I'm basically a rapid read-only person here, and it comes across to me 
    loud and clear: zero politeness, pricklyness, and indeed arrogance.  Why
    bother discussing anything with anyone in that tone of words?  

						-- mardy

    The interesting thing is that I don't necessarily disagree with a lot
    of what ::simpson says, and I'd enjoy seeing a discussion on the topic
    in Womannotes.
    
    Bonnie

    By the way, I've attempted to write to ::simpson and suggest that he
    enter his topic in Womannotes,  but the node doesn't exist when you
    attempt to send mail to the author.
    
    BJ

re .39

>Ah, but you did, or at least implied that if a woman did not have children, she
>couldn't be feminine. I just took your statement to it's logical conclusion.  
>If what you said is not what you mean, then you should put what you mean more
>clearly ! 

I repeat: I did not say what you claim I did.  Try reading what is there.  

>Femininity has absolutely nothing to do with procreation.

>Procreation is entirly biological.   Femininity is having the qualities of
>a woman; thus the characteristic can be applied to anyone of either sex.

You clearly have never studied this area.  From where arise the 'qualities of 
a woman'?  From the enculturalisation of the biological predispositions to 
certain types or modes of behaviour that are genetically and hormonally 
determined.  The same hormones that trigger the development of anatomical 
gender determine brain structure.  The brain is sexually differentiated.  
Hormones that govern sexual cycles also induce different brain lateralisation 
and clearly differentiated verbal and visual-spatial skills between the sexes.

Testosterone suppresses the female cycles, its absence can induce cycling in 
males.  Andro-genital girls and progestin-induced hermaphrodites display male 
characteristics (aggression, visual-spatial skills).  Turner's syndrome girls, 
who suffer a complete lack of testosterone display extraordinarily poor 
visual-spatial skills, yet excel in traditional female nurturing roles.  Temne 
men suffer from an excess of oestrogen: besides the physical effects (testes 
shrink, breasts develop) they display higher field dependence than is typical 
for males.  Oestrogen promotes nurturing behaviour, progestin suppresses it.

If hormones are withdrawn from men then their mating behaviour slowly 
disappears.  Learned behaviour can only cope for so long.  Men produce high 
quantities of androgens.  They decrease tactile sensitivity.  On some 
tactile tests the least sensitive woman is more sensitive than the most 
sensitive male.  Females produce higher levels of oestrogen, progesterone, 
oxytocin and prolactin.  They are linked in various ways with courtship, 
copulation, nest building, pregnancy and lactation.  

This is but a short list but it clearly makes the point: the 'qualities of a 
woman', nurturing, verbal skills, tactile sensitivity, passivity etc., are 
socialisations of biological predispositions.  The same hormones that 
determine the anatomical sex and facilitate the realisation of the biological 
potential determine the special social qualities.  Femininity, as I said a 
long time, ago, is inextricably linked to the female procreational potential 
(similarly for the male, obviously).  

At the same time, to give the lie to your repeated assertion that I say things 
I did not, it is not necessary for the biological potential to be realised for 
a woman to be feminine.  The simple existence of the hormonal balances in her 
body before birth, reinforced at puberty, ensure her femininity.  This is why 
I *NEVER* said it was necessary for a women to have children to be feminine.

re .48

TRODON is a PC, and I haven't set up the mail server properly yet.  Try BIGUN 
or KLEINE.

    ::Simpson do you have a first name? I'd like to make a suggestion.
    One of the things that I've learned over the years is that you
    don't educate people very well with a brick. Your message would
    be far better recieved if you would lower the hostility level.
    The manner in which you present your quite valid insights puts
    people off the message.
    
    Bonnie

    For clarification, my observation in .45 was prompted by viewing .17,
    (and then .23) as the catalysts, not .16. (It was also based on the
    assumption that SIMPSON is a man).



    				herb

    herb
    
    Most of what ::simpson said I had no problem with, I reacted to
    a specific paragraph that I did. That doesn't mean I am rejecting
    the rest of his message.
    
    BJ

    <Most of what ::simpson said I had no problem with, 

    that doesn't surprise me. 

    If a response of that sort had been entered in both .17 and .23, i
    believe this conversation would have been very different.

    
    				herb
    
    p.s.
    in general, i found the comments in .16 provocative, insightful, and
    useful.

    Herb
    
    You mean that I shouldn't have called ::simpson on being rude?

    <you mean that I shouldn't have called ::simpson on being rude?

    That's right.

    at least not in the way, and at the time that you did

    Sorry, I disagree with you.

    With hindsight, I think that one might have realized that the comments
    in .17 raised the ante, and had resulted in an additional ante raising in
    .22. At that point -with hindsight- the useful act would have been to
    search for a deescalation, NOT to continue the escalation.

    To try and get this note back on track:
    
    .28:
    
>    I was happy at 24. But even then I knew that traditionally defined ambition
>    was less important than self-knowledge, love, community, curiosity,
>    flexibility, diletantism, family.
    
    And then Kit goes on to say how it's just kept getting better for
    him 8-)  He concludes with:
    
>    I don't think I am alone, or even unusual, in this respect.
    
    Actually, Kit, I think you ARE rather unusual in this respect.  Our
    society does not prepare people to reflect regularly on their life
    goals and their plans for achieving them.  Rather, it encourages people
    to make an early, uninformed choice, climb on the appropriate
    treadmill, and run as fast as they can.  Most people are too busy
    running to do the kind of reflection you speak of; they pick a life
    direction and take off.  They can be carried quite far by momentum
    before it may even BEGIN to occur to them that this path may not be for
    them.  By this time, enough commitments have mounted up (education,
    spouse, kids, home, debts...) that making any kind of drastic life
    change becomes unthinkable... so they don't think about it.  They don't
    ALLOW themselves to think about it... at least not consciously.  Until
    one day the stress of doing something they don't WANT to do for so long
    becomes too great, and the weight of decades' worth of unthought
    thoughts comes crashing down at once.
    
    This is how mid-life crises are made.  It's a "crisis" precisely
    because it happens all at once.
    
    I tend to follow your model, Kit; I think quite often about how my
    direction in life squares with who I want to be as a person; if I find
    myself going in a divergent direction (e.g. too much attention to one
    aspect of my life, not enough to others), then I try to chart my way
    back on course.
    
    From my observations, though, far too many people don't do this;
    rather, they continue along the same direction hoping it'll get
    better...  It very seldom does.
    
    --jim
    
    

    The concensus here seems to be that simpson:: (would you look him up in
    ELF for me Herb?  There's a parcel load of Simpsons and he/she doesn't
    seem to want to give us a personal name) has stooped to a consistent
    and unnecessary rudeness in his/her replies.  I also agreed with .16 almost
    entirely.  Anger may have been escalated by many parties, but as far
    as I can see, rudeness was escalated solely by simpson:: (unless you
    take my little satire as being rude, but I did put at least three
    smiley faces at the end of it, which should exempt me. right. :^)
    
    					- Vick

re: .59  (--jim)

That's a great description of what has gone on for me,
and it was compounded by my wife's death from cancer just before my 39th
birthday.  It leaves me mentally thrashing in all directions, wondering
about what could be a better place for me: changing careers, moving to New
Mexico, jumping off a bridge, etc.

Ben

re: the rathole
    
"From the enculturalisation of the biological predispositions to 
certain types or modes of behaviour that are genetically and hormonally 
determined.  The same hormones that trigger the development of anatomical 
gender determine brain structure.  The brain is sexually differentiated.  
Hormones that govern sexual cycles also induce different brain lateralisation 
and clearly differentiated verbal and visual-spatial skills between the 
sexes."

Well, I hate to be the one to break this to you, but hormones do not determine
brain structure.  The brain forms the same way any other organ forms, from 
cells splitting and forming specific structures.  If you can form a brain with 
a bunch of hormones in a jar, I suggest you quit DEC immediately and hire on as
 God's assistant.  

The brain STRUCTURE of men and women is identical as far as 
anatomy. Hormone levels differ, but so what?  They differ in every 
individual.  Sexual differentiation in brain structure is about as inflammatory
as Shokley's thesis that blacks were biologically stupider than whites.  You
have no proof of this except the red herrings of hermaphrodites and other
rare occurences (why does this prove something when the so-called normal men
and women hormones' structure/function relationship hasn't even been proven)
and some third rate undergrad psych experiments of hormone levels and 
observed behavior. It's a big jump to say a higher level of estorgen can 
induce breast enlargement in men or is in lactating women and that therefore 
they are more nurturing.  

The bottom line to all of this is that except for very general probing of the
highest layers of the brain's lobes there is no biological proof of how the
brain/mind works.  We simply can't run invasive experiments without 
killing the subject.  So get off the sexist soapbox, pal. You have no proof. 
Women are no more nurturing and thus need to have children to realize their 
destiny than I am because I wear brown pants.   

And by the way, in my book, calling someone a moron is rude.
    
steve applegate    

re .62

No proof?  You're putting me on, right?  This *has* to be bait.  I've been 
studying up on this intensively and the proof is overwhelming.  We know the 
stages the brain structure goes through (the hypothalamus is the classic.  
We know which hormones influence it, why it's structure is different 
between the sexes, what it does), we know that cerebral functions in 
men and women are organised into different parts of the brain (for example, 
we know where, say, the visual-spatial functions are located.  They are 
consistently in different parts of the brain depending upon sex), we know 
enough about how hormones influence behaviour that we can induce specific 
forms of behaviour in trials with rhesus monkeys (timing is often critical.  
For example, by hitting female rhesus at the right times with the right 
hormones we can induce very specific male behaviour patterns at will).  
These are not 'third-rate undergrad experiments - we're talking about 
studies by some of the most eminent scientists across the world in this 
field.  You haven't got a clue what you're talking about.

No reputable scientist today will deny any of this.  You're a century out 
of date.

No way, this is too obviously bait.

    
    I don't know how old you are Jim.  I think it's still a little early
    for Kit to be entirely smug.  In fact, from what I've read, some men
    who don't have a good ole crisis at the expected time, or don't come
    to some resolution at that time, end up having a rip-snorter in their
    50's or 60's.  But apparently some do sail right on through.  More
    power to them!  I think for most men, they think they are on track
    being the kind of person they want to be.  It's when they realize that
    it won't be possible to be that person or that they've become uncertain
    as to what they want to be anymore, that the crisis occurs.  You won't
    be the same as an old person as you were as a middle-aged person, any
    more than you were the same person as an child as you were as a
    young adult.  Between child and adult, there is the dangerous and
    confusing time of adolescence.  between middle-age and old-age there
    is the mid-life crisis.  Some men in mid-life crisis behave almost
    like adolescents.  
    
    And, by the way, reading Kit's note, one thing that struck me was that
    he had three "young" children.  Perhaps he has a younger wife also, I
    wouldn't know.  But that kind of thing can give a man a younger 
    feeling and a sense of purpose to carry him a while longer.  Of course,
    many men in mid-life crisis ditch their first family and take a younger 
    woman as a wife and start a new family.  This frequently just postpones
    the crisis.
    
    					- Vick
    
    

    .64 your last statement-re. many men ditch their 1st wife and family
    for younger wife and start new family, in mid-life crisis.
    
    There are plenty of men that do this before, during and after mid-life.
    I wonder how in doing this, it solves their problems?

>    I don't know how old you are Jim.  I think it's still a little early
>    for Kit to be entirely smug.
    
    Oh, I'm pretty young by midlife-crisis standards (29).
    
    One little tidbit of my own history you might find interesting: I had a
    delayed adloescence.  You see, I was always a "good little boy" as a
    kid.  As a teenager, I thought I had mother nature beat; as kids all
    around me were experiencing adolescence, rebelling, finding themselves,
    and all that... I very smugly maintained that I didn't HAVE to find
    myself 'cause I already knew who I was.
    
    Lo and behold, I get to college and am no longer under my parents'
    thumbs... and I discover that I really DIDN'T know myself.  The "me"
    that I "knew" was in fact the person my PARENTS wanted me to be (or at
    least the one I THOUGHT they wanted me to be).  I didn't KNOW who *I*
    wanted to be!  WHAMMO!!!  Can you imagine going through adolescence AND
    trying to get thru MIT at the same time?
    
    Since then, I've made it a point to try and get in touch with the "Real
    Me" regularly 8-)  I don't pretend that I'll be entirely free of angst
    as I go throughout life, but I hope I'll be able to deal with it in
    real time rather than letting it build up to crisis proportions...
    
    --jim
    

    Re: .64 [trading in the old wife&kids for a newer model]:
    
>    I wonder how in doing this, it solves their problems?
    
    It usually doesn't... it's just that a lot of guys THINK it does. 
    Usually this is a result of guys not thinking the problem through. 
    They're in a midlife crisis, and they look around them at what
    irritates them or makes them feel uncomfortable:  "Geez... that old bag
    of a wife is pretty dull... maybe if I grab a young babe, be the Romeo
    I never was..." -or- "Geez... I've been driving sensible Oldsmobiles
    all my life, no wonder I'm so dull... maybe if I buy me a
    fire-engine-red Porsche that'll fix things..."
    
    In general, drastic-but-superficial life changes such as this seem to
    me to be "quick fixes" that don't do a thing towards addressing the
    real problem...
    
    --jim
    
    

    	I know this is a rathole, but from personal experience I am
    surprised at the claim that visual-spatial functions are superior in
    males.
    
    	I am congenitally incapable of even noticing that I have put up a
    cupboard or towel rail crooked, never mind putting it up straight in
    the first place. I *can't* use pictures or diagrams in presentations -
    they mean nothing to me when I see them in the presentations of others,
    so I am incapable of producing anything effective myself. I am aware
    that we have kitchen curtains since I have to move them to open the
    kitchen window, but I don't think I could describe their colour or
    shape. My wife (a geography teacher) can draw excellent sketch maps of
    places from memory.
    
    	Without going in to other family details I can say this is typical.
    The males are *not* good at visual and spatial things. There is one
    exception. My father has always had a hobby of making dresses for my
    mother, which indicates *some* aptitude. However, since *every* female
    member of the family over the age of 15 has designed and made clothes
    this is very much the exception.
    
    	Dave

    Okay, one more time down the rathole.
    
    You have NO PROOF that sex determines brain structure.  The human brain
    starts developing at 25 days gestation.  There is no ubnified theory
    that explains exactly what happens (loose vs strict constructionsists),
    thus neuroscientists can only explain what happens (in a very general
    way) vs why it happens.
    
    Geschwind, the Harvard neuroscientist who did a lot of the spatial
    studies you so conveniently throw out to prove your b*&*sh*t about
    nurturing (you still haven't proven where this has been conclusively
    shown) says that ON THE AVERAGE men are better at spatial function.
    
    Face it, there is no conclusive proof  of an anatomic difference
    between male and female brains.  You simply are playing fast with third
    rate psych experiments that prove nothing. Anybody
    who would hit a monkey over the head with a hammer is a pretty sick
    puppy, btw.  
    
    Granted sex hormone influence in prenatal development may have an
    effect on some discrimination capabilities (that hasn't been
    conclusively proven either), but this crap about nurturing is as
    bigotted as Shokley and dangerous as the Nazi master race.  There
    simply is not enough data to make broad generalizations about sex, race
    or any group of people.  It is the old environment vs genetics debate and,
    frankly, I'm sick of bigotted claims that human behavior is the sole result
    of brain chemistry.  Again, YOU HAVE NO PROOF.  And by the way, I've
    done a little studying on this too.
    
    Now if you'll excuse me, I gotta go nurture my two kids so I can get
    them to school.
    
    I can't believe you really believe this.  You are the one who is 100
    years behind the time.
    

    
I shall quote selectively but I hope judiciously from 'Brain Sex', by Anne 
Moir, PH.D. (Genetics) and David Jessel, writer.  It is a solid introduction 
without being overly technical, but is firmly based upon reputable scientific 
studies and is but one of a growing number of publications in this field which 
all broadly support each other.

I offer these slices as a hint to the genuinely interested and the monstrously
ignorant (like good friend Applegate) who wish to deny the reality not only of
an Everest of evidence, published in the most reputable scientific journals of
the world, but simply of their own eyes as well.

"'bear in mind that someday all our provisional formulations in psychology will 
have to be based on an organic foundation... It will then probably be seen that 
it is special chemical substances and processes which achieve the effects of 
sexuality...'

	Sigmund Freud.

"The sexes are different because their brains are different.  The brain, the 
chief administrative and emotional organ of life, is differently constructed in 
men and women; it processes information in a different way, which results in 
different perceptions, priorities and behaviour.

"In the past ten years there has been an explosion of scientific research into 
what makes the sexes different.  Doctors, scientists, psychologists and 
sociologists, working apart, have produced a body of findings which, taken 
together, paints a remarkably consistent picture.  And the picture is one of 
startling sexual asymmetry.

"Until recently, behavioural differences between the sexes have been explained 
away by social conditioning...  Today there is too much new biological evidence 
for the sociological argument to prevail.

"[Yet] the truth is that every professional scientist and researcher into the 
subject has concluded that the brains of men and women are different.  There 
has seldom been a greater divide between what intelligent, enlightened opinion 
presumes - that men and women have the same brain - and what science knows - 
that they do not.

"If there is still a dispute about how sex differences arise there is now no 
argument in the scientific community that such differences exist.  It cannot be 
stressed often enough that this book concerns itself with the *average* man and 
the *average* woman.  In the same way, we might say that men are taller than 
women... Of course some women will be taller than some men, and the tallest 
women may possibly be taller than the tallest man.  But statistically men are 
on average 7 per cent taller, and the tallest person in the world... is 
certainly a man.

"These [sex] differences have a practical, social relevance.  On measurements 
of various aptitude tests, the difference between the sexes in average scores 
on these tests can be as much as 25 per cent.  A difference of as little as 5 
per cent has been found to have a marked impact on the occupations or 
activities at which men and women will, on average, excel.

"The area where the biggest differences have been found lies in what scientists 
call 'spatial ability'... One scientist who has reviewed the extensive 
literature on the subject concludes, "The fact of the male superiority in 
spatial ability is not in dispute.'  It is confirmed by literally hundreds of 
different scientific studies.

"Boys also have superior hand-eye co-ordination necessary for ball sports...

"While the male brain gives men the edge in dealing with things and theorems, 
the female brain is organised to respond more sensitively to all sensory 
stimuli.  Women do better than men on tests of verbal ability.  Females are 
equipped to receive a wider range of sensory information, to connect and relate 
that information with greater facility, to place a primacy on personal 
relationships, and to communicate.  Cultural influences may reinforce these 
strengths, but they are innate.

"Girls say their first words and learn to speak... earlier than boys.   They 
read earlier too... Boys outnumber girls 4:1 in remedial reading classes.  They 
[women] are also more fluent: stuttering and other speech defects occur almost 
exclusively among boys.

"Girls and women hear better than men.  When the sexes are compared, women show 
a greater sensitivity to sound.

"Men and women even see some things differently.  Women see better in the dark. 
They are more sensitive to the red end of the spectrum, and have a better 
visual memory.

"Men see better than women in bright light.  Intriguing results also show that 
men tend to be literally blinkered; they see in a narrow field - mild tunnel 
vision - with greater concentration on depth... Women, however, quite literally 
take in the bigger picture.  They have wider peripheral vision, because they 
have more of the receptor cones and rods in the retina, at the back of the 
eyeball, to receive a wider arc of visual input.

"There is strong evidence that men and women have different senses of taste - 
women being more sensitive to bitter flavours like quinine, and preferring 
higher concentrations and greater quantities of sweet things.  Men score higher 
in discerning salty flavours.  Overall, however, the evidence strongly suggests 
a greater female delicacy and perception in taste.

"Women's noses, as well as their palates, are more sensitive than men's; a case 
in point is their perception of exaltolide, a synthetic musk-like odour 
associated with men, but hardly noticeable to them.  Women found the smell 
attractive.  Interestingly, this superior sensitivity increases just before 
ovulation; at a critical time of her menstrual cycle, the biology of women 
makes her more sensitive to man.

"This superiority in so many of the senses can be clinically measured - yet it 
is what accounts for women's almost supernatural 'intuition'.  Women are simply 
better equipped to notice things to which men are comparatively blind and 
deaf... Women are better at picking up social cues, picking up important 
nuances of meaning from tones of voice or intensity of expression.

"The hormones determine the distinct male or female organisation of the brain 
as it develops in the womb.  We share the same sexual identity for only the 
first few weeks after conception. Thereafter, in the womb, the very structure 
and pattern of the brain begins to take a specifically male or female form.  
Throughout infant, teenage, and adult life, the way the brain was forged will 
have, in subtle interplay with the hormones, a fundamental effect on the 
attitudes, behaviour, and intellectual functioning of the individual.

"Infants are not blank slates, on whom we scrawl instructions for sexually 
appropriate behaviour.  They are born with male or female minds of their own.  
They have, quite literally, made up their minds in the womb, safe from the 
legions of social engineers who impatiently await them.

"Our identity blueprints come in the form of forty-six chromosomes, half 
contributed by the mother, half by the father.  The first forty-four team up 
with one another... But the last pair are different.

"The mother contributes an 'X' chromosome to the egg.  If the father's 
contribution ... is another 'X' chromosome, the outcome will - normally - be 
the formation of a girl baby.  If the father's sperm contains a 'Y' chromosome, 
normally a baby boy will be born.

"But genes alone do not guarantee the sex of a child.  That depends on the 
intervention, or the absence, of the other factor in sex determination - the 
hormones.  Whatever the genetic make-up of the embryo, the foetus will only 
develop as a male if male hormones are present, and it will only develop as a 
female if male hormones are absent... It is only by looking at where 
development has gone wrong that scientists have been able to build a picture of 
what happens during normal development.  These studies have shown that male 
hormones are the crucial factor in determining the sex of a child.

"...so the embryonic brain takes some time before it begins to acquire a 
specific sexual identity... In broad terms, the natural template of the brain 
seems to be female.  In normal girls it will develop naturally along female 
lines.

"In boys it is different.  Just as male gender depended on the presence of male 
hormone, so a radical intervention is needed to change the naturally female 
brain into a male pattern.

"This literally mind-altering process is the result of the same process that 
determined those other physical changes - the intervention of the hormones.

"Having found that there was a connection between hormones and behaviour, the 
next step was to see whether physical differences in the structure of the brain 
could be found.

	[skipping over accounts of animal experiments]

"The earliest clues to how the brain works came from examining the behaviour of 
people with brain damage.  Different areas of the brain control specific 
functions.

"... the left side of the brain deals predominantly with verbal abilities and 
the detailed orderly processing of information.  That is, speaking, reading and 
writing are all largely under the control of the left... Damage to the left 
side of the brain causes all sorts of problems relating to language.

"The right side of the brain is the headquarters for visual information.  It 
deals with spatial relations.  A person with brain damage to the right-hand 
side often loses their sense of direction... The right side is responsible for 
taking in 'the big picture', basic shapes and patterns.

"He [Landsell] took a group of epileptics who had had part of their bran 
removed - some of the right sphere which deals with the shape of things and the 
space they occupy... The men with right-side brain damage did badly in tests 
relating to spatial skills.  Yet the relative performance of the similarly 
brain-damaged women were scarcely affected.

"Landsell moved on to the left hemisphere, where language skills are located.  
Once again, men with left-side damage lost much of their command of language; 
but women with damage in the area retained most of theirs.  Men were three 
times more likely to suffer from a language problem than women - in spite of 
having been damaged in exactly the same place.

"This led Landsell to the conclusion, now accepted, that in women language and 
spatial skills are controlled by centres in both sides of the brain; but in men 
such skills are more specifically located - the right side for spatial skills, 
the left for verbal ones.  Numerous studies have confirmed the early findings.

"In women the functional division between the let and right sides of the brain 
is less clearly defined... Men's brains are more specialised.

	[skipping lengthy additional evidence and argument]

"The importance of the differences in brain organisation for emotion becomes 
clearer in the light of the latest discovery of sex differences in the brain.

"The difference relates to the corpus callosum, the bundle of fibres that link 
the left and right sides of the brain.  These nerve fibres allow for the 
exchange of information between the two halves of the brain.  In women the 
corpus callosum is different from in the male brain.

"In blind tests on fourteen brains obtained after autopsy, the scientists found 
that in women an important area of the corpus callosum was thicker and more 
bulbous than in men.  Overall, this key message-exchange centre was bigger, in 
relation to overall brain weight, in women than in men.  The difference could 
be precisely discerned.... This means that more information is being exchanged 
between the left and right sides of the female brain.

"Some scientists suggest that the difference in emotional response in men and 
women can be explained by the differences in the structure and organisation of 
the brain.

"Man keeps his emotions in their place; and that place is the right side of the 
brain...  Because the two halves of the brain are connected by fewer fibres... 
it is then often more difficult for a man to express his emotions because the 
information is flowing less easily to the verbal, left side of his brain.

"A woman may be less able to separate emotion from reason because... the female 
brain has emotional capacities on both sides... there is more information 
exchanged between the two sides... The emotional side is more integrated with 
the verbal side of the brain.

	[skipping childhood]

"The hormonal flow is regulated by that part of the brain which researchers 
first noticed was different in men and women - the hypothalamus.  In men, its 
job is to keep the hormone levels fairly constant...  Scientists call this 
process 'negative feedback'...  But in women... the hypothalamus-pituitary 
command system seems to behave like a lunatic in charge of a flood barrier; 
when the water level rises, instead of closing the gates he opens them wider 
[positive feedback].  This leads to wide fluctuations in hormone concentrations 
in women - and sometimes great fluctuations in female behaviour.  

"It is now accepted that regular changes in personality correlate with phases 
of the menstrual cycle, involving a swing in some women between 'elevated 
positive moods' and 'elevated negative mods' in a manner independent of social 
factors.

"The most obvious difference between boys and girls is male aggression; and it 
has an overwhelmingly biological rather than social cause... It's not just a 
matter of the hormones: to produce aggression, the hormones have to have a 
developed male brain to act upon.  

"Most criminals who have committed violent offences during adolescence had high 
testosterone levels - in much the same way that the irrational and 
over-emotional women had high secretions of female hormones... The law has 
begun to recognise PMT as a source of problems for women.  Maybe one day men 
will be able to advance the plea of VMT - violent male testosterone.  This is 
not to denigrate the problems that women with premenstrual tension suffer, but 
to point out that some men suffer a similar severe reaction as a consequence of 
their biology.

	[skipping more about childhood]

"An interesting behavioural effect of the menopause is that women no longer 
produce the female hormones that counteracted the small amount of male hormone 
produced by their adrenal glands.  In consequence they may become more 
aggressive and assertive, as well as producing more facial hair.

"In old age, men and women increasingly resemble each other in behaviour, as 
the influences of the hormones fades away.

"As we have seen, boys do not do particularly well at school initially.  Come 
puberty, though, and the boys accelerate dramatically.  They catch up with the 
girls on the verbal and writing scores, and surge ahead in mathematical 
ability.

"The most dramatic difference, which the preadolescent years have hinted at, is 
in mathematical and scientific aptitude.  The academic shorthand for this is 
'visuo-spatial ability'.  As we know, the area in the male brain which deals 
with this is more tightly and exclusively organised than in females.

"The principal researchers involved, Camilla Benbow and Julian Stanley, admit 
that any hypothesis involving biological differences between males and females 
will be 'unpopular and controversial'.  Accordingly they went to great lengths 
to iron out any alternative social or environmental factors.

"Research into human beings suggests that girls with the highest oestrogen 
levels seem to be at an intellectual disadvantage, while those girls with high 
levels of male hormone tend to do better than the female average in all 
academic disciplines.

"We [appear] to have written at inordinate length about this particular 
difference between men and women.  We've done so for two reasons - first, to 
show that there is an experimentally demonstrable difference between the 
average male and female brain; secondly because the worlds of mathematics, 
vision and space are not confined to the academic cloisters.  They play a part 
in everyday life.  If men are more interested in the structure of things - 
which they are - they are not just interested in isosceles triangles; they are 
interested in new cars.

"Other tests, while confirming the female disadvantage during high-oestrogen 
periods, have also revealed a corresponding advantage.  High levels of female 
hormone seem to enhance co-ordination skills in women.

"With puberty, the full differences between the male and female brain are made 
manifest; differences in behaviour, emotion, ambition, aggression, skill and 
aptitude.  The much-lamented sexual stereotyping of boys and girls, men and 
women, comes from themselves at least as much as it does from society.  There 
are limits to the 'ideal' of non-sexist child-rearing.

	[argument and evidence on marriage, polygamy, social structures, sexual 
politics, aggression, domination and the like]

"When a prominent feminist friend of ours heard about this book, her eyes 
narrowed and she said, not without a hint of menace, 'It had better be good.'

"She assumed, as many have done, that because this is a book about sex 
differences, it must somehow be a book against women.

"The argument about the existence of brain sex differences has been won.  It 
now begins to seem a little strange that the battle ever had to be fought at 
all, when men and women are so obviously different in physique and behaviour.

"There is solid and consistent evidence from scientists all over the world that 
a biochemical influence in the womb determines the structure and function of 
our brains.  Through the influence of hormones the brain cells 'acquire a 
"set"... highly resistant to change after birth.'  This organisation of the 
brain into a male or female neural network is permanent...

"There are also morphological differences between the brains of men and women - 
that is, a difference in structure or form.

"In old age, as the hormonal springs begin to run dry, those differences in the 
brain that they accentuated begin to lose their sharp focus.  

"If sex differences, once acknowledged, are deemed to be wrong, hurtful, and 
unjust, there is a way to eliminate them...  [] if we want to eliminate [them] 
we must change the biological cocktail of Creation.

    It's interesting that to win us over to your highly scientific
    theories, you present us with introductory drivel from a pop-psych
    book, the first for Ms. Moir and co-written by a professional writer to
    make it understandable to rabble such as us.
    
    It's also interesting that you seem so indifferent to what we are
    trying to tell you about your inappropriate, inexcusable, and
    unparalleled (even in this notesfile) rudeness.  It is simply bad
    form, old man.  You seem a bit too keen on being right factually.
    Anyone who disagrees with you is worthy of any epiteth.  Perhaps your
    brain is overly male and you are possessed of too much testosterone.
    At any rate, a notesfile is probably the wrong forum for someone 
    who can't endure debate without attacking the participants personally.  
    When you say something in a notesfile you are bound to get some
    intelligent people disagreeing with you.  You'd be better off if you'd
    learn to live with it and deal with it courteously.  Calling people
    names won't win you many adherents, no matter how strong your factual
    case.  I note that even Ms. Moir doesn't say that people who believe in
    nurture over nature are monstrously ignorant.
    
    					- Vick
    
    P.S.  You remind me of my father.  He always had to be right too and
    those who disagreed with him were imbeciles and morons.  At least he
    had the good sense not to call them that in public.

    I'd hoped to stay out of the fray with ::SIMPSON, but I have just
    two observations:
    
    (1) Even if you discover structural differences between male and female
    brains, that's a FAR cry from proving that women derive their greatest
    fulfillment from having children.  In other words, you might be able to
    say that there *IS* a difference, but proving how that difference
    translates into behavior is a great UNSOLVED problem.  Psychology is a
    black art, and neurophysiology isn't much better.  Any attempt to
    bridge the gap *between* the two is going to be *extremely* tentative
    at best.  We've only solved it in some of the absolute grossest cases
    (e.g. disconnect the hypothalamus and you lose emotional control).  The
    jury is still VERY much out on most of the subtler things that
    ::SIMPSON is trying to cite authority for...
    
    (2) When reading ::SIMPSON's source and noticing their extrapolations
    from certain limited pysiological and psychological studies to try to
    explain behavioral differences between men and women, I can't help
    thinking of the old phrenologists.  These were the folks, back in the
    late 19th century, who were convinced that differences in head shape
    could be used to determine people's propensity for anti-social behavior
    (this is where the stereotype of the lowbrow, beady-eyed criminal came
    from).
    
    --jim
    
    

>    explain behavioral differences between men and women, I can't help
>    thinking of the old phrenologists.  These were the folks, back in the
    
    There were also studies showing how brains differed between the races,
    thus explaining why Anglo-Saxons were so much more intelligent than
    Catholics, excuse me, Irish or Spanish or Italians (with "Orientals"
    below them and the "Negroid peoples" on the bottom). They're still used
    as references by some far right groups.
    
    I summarized an interesting survey of "sex-related mental abilities"
    into WOMANNOTES a while back; if I get the time, I'll repost it here.
    
    Ray

    re .22    
    <I don't respect Womannotes enough to bother noting there>
     
    Although in my opinion that was an imprudent thing to say, please note
    that it says *nothing* about Womannotes rather it states the author's
    attitude about Womannotes. 
    That is a reflection of the author, not a reflection of Womannotes.
    Therefore, it can hardly be characterized as rude or insulting although
    one may speculate that that might have been the intent.
    
    <I don't respect Womannotes enough to bother noting there>
    
    		is very,very different from say...
    
    "Womannotes does not deserve my respect (or anybody else's)"
    
    I believe the moderator would have deleted an entry that contained that.

    and in my opinion it was rude, especially given the tone of the
    other responses from the same individual. Herb, I'd like to request
    that you drop the subject or discuss it with me by mail. I'm apt
    to lose my patience and say something that will be considered
    deletable.
    
    Bonnie

    	I found .70 fascinating, because it runs almost directly opposite
    to all my personal experience. I know single exceptions don't disprove
    an adequate statistical analysis, but :-
    
>"The area where the biggest differences have been found lies in what scientists 
>call 'spatial ability'... One scientist who has reviewed the extensive 
>literature on the subject concludes, "The fact of the male superiority in 
>spatial ability is not in dispute.'  It is confirmed by literally hundreds of 
>different scientific studies.

    	I have already mentioned my relative incompetence compared with my
    wife in this area.
    
>Women do better than men on tests of verbal ability.  Females are 
>equipped to receive a wider range of sensory information, to connect and relate 
>that information with greater facility, to place a primacy on personal 
>relationships, and to communicate.  Cultural influences may reinforce these 
>strengths, but they are innate.
>
>"Girls say their first words and learn to speak... earlier than boys.   They 
>read earlier too... 
    
    	For the last several years I have been moderator of the JOYOFLEX
    conference, and did not feel at a great disadvantage compared with the
    women there. I note that the person who formulated the text you are
    quoting was male even though the technical expert was female.
    
    	My son was speaking at 10 months, and reading a little at three
    years. My younger daughter (even though she is possibly more
    intelligent) did not speak much until 18 months, and was almost 5
    before she was reading.
    
>"Men and women even see some things differently.  Women see better in the dark. 
>They are more sensitive to the red end of the spectrum, and have a better 
>visual memory.
>
>"Men see better than women in bright light.  Intriguing results also show that 
>men tend to be literally blinkered; they see in a narrow field - mild tunnel 
>vision - with greater concentration on depth... Women, however, quite literally 
>take in the bigger picture.  They have wider peripheral vision, because they 
>have more of the receptor cones and rods in the retina, at the back of the 
>eyeball, to receive a wider arc of visual input.
    
    	My night vision is *definitely* better than that of my wife. She is
    always opening shutters and turning lights on to a level I find
    uncomfortable. She hates night driving, but it doesn't bother me. On
    the other hand, in full daylight she can identify a distant bird and
    give its wing coulours while I am only aware that there is a bird
    there. I have a slight (medically diagnosed) blue-green colour
    blindness, so while we probably see equally well at the red end of the
    spectrum she is definitely better at the other end. This infuriates her
    because her favourite colour is a pale turquoise which I am unable to
    distinguish from a pale blue. I *think* I have better peripheral vision
    than she does, but have no real proof of this.
    
>"Women's noses, as well as their palates, are more sensitive than men's; a case 
>in point is their perception of exaltolide, a synthetic musk-like odour 
>associated with men, but hardly noticeable to them.  
    
    	Maybe they were using the wrong musk? My wife had several
    miscarriages while we were trying for our second child, and I always
    knew when she was pregnant before she did - her body scent had changed
    about 10 to 15 days after conception. Did they try synthetic female
    musk-like odours on men?
    
    	I know personal experience should not weigh heavily against
    meticulously collected statistics, but when the statistics seem to run
    directly contrary to one's personal experience it does cause a little
    skepticism.

    Uhhhh, boy, I'm feeling a little slow today.  Could you run that
    distinction by me again, Herb?  :^)
    
    But to be honest, I didn't find the statement particularly rude, though
    it did speak volumes about the author.  Lot's of people complain about
    other notesfiles.  In fact, lots of people in =wn= say unkind things
    about =mn=.  Big deal.  I'm more concerned about the personal attacks.
    
    					- Vick

While it may be true that it is permitted to complain about MENNOTES in
other notes conferences, I have a rule which says that MENNOTES may not serve
as a forum for disparaging comments about other notes conferences.  If you
don't like some notes conference, tell the moderators by mail or take it to
that conference - I won't put up with such attacks here.


				Steve

A joke I've heard has someone saying "If men are so good about spacial
relationships, how come they call this," holding thumb and index finger about
two inches apart, "six inches?"

				Steve

    Nor do we allow egregious criticism of Mennotes in Womannotes. In fact
    as a Womannotes moderator, if someone can point out such criticisms
    to me I'll be more than glad to deal with them.
    
    Bonnie

    re .79
    <I won't put up with such attacks here>
    
    then I take it you either didn't see the <I don't respect
    womannotes...> comment in .22 or you do not consider it disparaging.
    Which is it?

    Re: .64
    
 >  I don't know how old you are Jim.  I think it's still a little early
 >   for Kit to be entirely smug.  
    
    Oh, damn, somebody's always telling you you're not old enough to do
    something!
    
    As for getting hit later, maybe. But I have purposely had many lives,
    not all ones that I asked for. I made the best of the ones I had until
    I felt I wanted to change and knew how to change, or even *was* changed
    without any effort by me.  The key is to accept change.
    
    And, yes, one of those changes was a young wife.  Young only beause I
    was "old" (33) when I met her, not because I had any particular thing
    about younger women. I am, in fact, utterly inept at courtship -- a
    fact my wife (who is anything but inept) found astonishing.  This was a
    change I had not anticipated, but have profited by.
    
    Kit

    The gravedigger sniggered 
    	as he dug
    "Only the dead are safely smug"
    
    :^)  (I just made that up.  Not bad, huh!)

    re:  =wm=
    I distinctly remember a very disparaging comment about =mn= in "I really
    hate...".  Maybe it got removed, I don't know.
    
    					- Vick

    -Vick, send me mail, okay? and that's only one comment :-) your
    previous note implied that =wn= was rife with them...
    
    Bonnie

    re .76
    <I'm apt to lose my patience and say something that will be considered
    deletable.
    

    you already did -i presume- 	<lose your patience> because...
    you did 				<say something>
    it was -i presume- 			<considered deleteable> because
    it was  				deleted

    that was the point..
    
    

    btw, I did attempt to use vtx elf and vtx node locator to find our
    elusive ::simpson. Kleine is Canberra Australia, however, which would
    explain why he/she doesn't respond during our working day, but there
    is no ::simpson listed in Canberra.
    
    Bonnie

    Oh God, and I promise that this is it!
    
    ::simpson, you're three hundred + line extract merely said two things:
    
    1) Men are different than women.  i.e psychopaths have more testosterone,
    can catch a ball better, etc. while women have a better command of the
    language, are more nurturing (I still wish you would define exactly
    what you mean), etc.
    
    2) The reason is those pesky hormones.
    
    THIS DOES NOT MEAN THEIR BRAINS, THEIR G^%AMN ORGAN IS ANY DIFFERENT. 
    ANATOMICALLY, IT IS THE SAME!!!!!!!!
    
    The brain begins to  form in the womb before the hormones are present.  
    So, which came first?
    
    Well, it appears me and the simper are agreeing to disagree.  I will
    not dignify this anymore.  As the father of a boy and a girl, I can see
    differences in their development, but I'll be damned if I am going pre
    supose that either of them have a destiny towards anything except  what
    they want to be.  And I will support them.
    
    Mr. Moderator asked me very politely in a mail message to curb my
    language so I will be going back into my read only mode (plus I am
    going back on site next week).
    
    One question though,  do you get many dates with lines like
    
    "Hey baby, want to fulfill your biological destiney with me?" 

> there is no ::simpson listed in Canberra.

gilroy 13*>grep -i bigun mininode.lst
BIGUN  59.0259 CAO        VAXCL   VMS    4E   RANDLES        0000000000    T0R
gilroy 14*>grep -i cao validcod.dat
CAO        CANBERRA                AUSTRALIA       BRANCH OFFICE
gilroy 15*>elf simpson | grep -i cao
Page   5,    13 people so far
Page  10,    32 people so far
Elf found 44 people
SIMPSON, DAVID                                CAO-G/2      [email protected]

	-- Charles

    Can the discussions about who was rude to who and when...
    Where is ::SIMPSON (he is in Canberra, Australia)...
    and what NOTES conferences say about other conferences, PLEASE be taken
    offline or to another note!
    
    I get the feeling someone has an axe to grind and this is not the
    place.  
    Might I humbly suggest they be removed. 

I anticipated that the presentation of my fundamental assertion would provoke 
strong and quick responses, but the anticipation is not the event, and it is 
with a degree of wry amusement that I note how much my expectations of 
hysteria, woolly thinking, distortion, wilful misunderstanding, dissembling and 
deceit have been exceeded.

Let us begin by dispensing with certain minor loose ends.  First, 
congratulations to Mr Haynes, for putting to rest the single most irrelevant 
question in this conference.  I haven't worked out yet the implications of some 
people's desperate determination to know my first name (I've been the 'Box for 
over three years, Bonnie, and you should know it), but perhaps we can now get 
back to business.

Secondly, if Bonnie should so choose, I would appreciate (off-line preferably) 
an explanation of why the statement "I don't respect WomanNotes enough to note 
in it" caused such fury and distress.  With the best will in the world (you'll 
just have to trust me on this one) I can't work it out.

.79>While it may be true that it is permitted to complain about MENNOTES in
.79>other notes conferences, I have a rule which says that MENNOTES may not 
.79>serve as a forum for disparaging comments about other notes conferences.  
.79>If you don't like some notes conference, tell the moderators by mail or 
.79>take it to that conference - I won't put up with such attacks here.

Steve, will you please clarify whether you in fact think that any such attack 
has occurred?

Thirdly:

.62>    rate psych experiments that prove nothing. Anybody
.62>    who would hit a monkey over the head with a hammer is a pretty sick
.62>    puppy, btw.  

I don't recall hitting anything, much less a monkey.  Just what does this quote 
mean?

Now, to the matter at hand.

.71>    It's interesting that to win us over to your highly scientific
.71>    theories, you present us with introductory drivel from a pop-psych
.71>    book, the first for Ms. Moir and co-written by a professional writer to
.71>    make it understandable to rabble such as us.

This is a sterling case of poor thinking.  The fact that important material is 
presented in a manner that does not require specialist education for its 
understanding does not mean or imply that the content is inferior.  On the 
contrary, Anne Moir, PH.D. (Genetics) deserves commendation for seeking out 
professional assistance in an area in which, presumably, she is not well 
skilled.  It would serve little purpose, either in the public domain or here, 
for such important ideas to be presented in such a way that they cannot be 
understood or debated by 'rabble' such as you.

I won't pretend to have examined her bibliography extensively, but I have to 
some degree, and that of other books and studies on the matter as well, and 
before you criticise her science as 'pop-psych' you would do well to do the 
same.  The studies on which she presents her ideas are numerous, reputable and 
consistent.

.71>    form, old man.  You seem a bit too keen on being right factually.
.71>    Anyone who disagrees with you is worthy of any epiteth.  Perhaps your
.71>    brain is overly male and you are possessed of too much testosterone.

Indeed, I am very keen on being right factually.  That is why I spend so much 
of my life reading, thinking and debating.  Perhaps later we can discuss the 
extent to which this behaviour is hormonal and how much sociological.

Now, back to basics:

"From the enculturalisation of the biological predispositions to 
certain types or modes of behaviour that are genetically and hormonally 
determined.  The same hormones that trigger the development of anatomical 
gender determine brain structure.  The brain is sexually differentiated.  
Hormones that govern sexual cycles also induce different brain lateralisation 
and clearly differentiated verbal and visual-spatial skills between the 
sexes."

.62>The brain STRUCTURE of men and women is identical as far as 
.62>anatomy. Hormone levels differ, but so what?  They differ in every 
.62>individual.  Sexual differentiation in brain structure is about as 
.62>inflammatory as Shokley's thesis that blacks were biologically stupider 
.62>than whites.

The brain structure between men and women is only grossly identical, which is 
to say, in the sense that they all (normally) have two connected hemispheres, a 
cerebral cortex, etc., etc. (Studies repeatedly show that women's brain on 
average weigh about two per cent less than men's, but no reputable study has 
yet drawn any significant conclusion from this).  But there are significant 
morphological differences.

We have seen how the corpus callosum is physiologically different.  In essence, 
women not only have more 'bandwidth' between the left and right sides but they 
use it.  This physiological difference is consistent with the way we know the 
brain localises specific functions.  In general, these functions are organised 
like this:

	FUNCTION		BRAIN LOCATION		SUMMARY
	--------		--------------		-------
	Mechanics of language,  MEN: Left hemisphere	More diffuse
	e.g., speech, grammar	     front & back
				WOMEN: Left hemisphere	More specific
				       front

	Vocabulary,		MEN: Left hemisphere	More specific
	Defining words		     front & back
				WOMEN Left & right	More diffuse
				      hemispheres,
				      front & back

	Visuo-spatial		MEN: Right hemisphere	More specific
	perception		WOMEN: Right & left	More diffuse
				       hemispheres

	Emotion			MEN: Right hemisphere	More specific
				WOMEN: Right & left	More diffuse
				       hemispheres

The right side of the male brain is also relatively larger than the female.

If you wish to dispute this then show us the studies.  

There are other morphological differences.  The hypothalamus differs 
structurally: the neurones' shape, length, size and density differs markedly 
between men and women.  It's function has been described earlier:

"The hormonal flow is regulated by that part of the brain which researchers 
first noticed was different in men and women - the hypothalamus.  In men, its 
job is to keep the hormone levels fairly constant...  Scientists call this 
process 'negative feedback'...  But in women... the hypothalamus-pituitary 
command system seems to behave like a lunatic in charge of a flood barrier; 
when the water level rises, instead of closing the gates he opens them wider 
[positive feedback].  This leads to wide fluctuations in hormone concentrations 
in women - and sometimes great fluctuations in female behaviour."

If you wish to dispute this then show us the studies.  

.69>    And by the way, I've
.69>    done a little studying on this too.

Little, clearly, is the operative word, for later you present us with this 
monumental specimen of irrational thinking:

.90>    The brain begins to  form in the womb before the hormones are present.  
.90>    So, which came first?

Every reputable study shows clearly that the foetus is, for the first few weeks 
of life, undifferentiated (I think I've said this at least three times in this 
conference alone).  It has the physiological potential for both sexes.  (I 
shall assume you know about the Mullerian and Wolffian duct systems).  Then, 
around six weeks, the hormones intervene to facilitate the genetic 
predisposition.  They affect the growth and pattern of the brain as well as the 
rest of the body.

"But genes alone do not guarantee the sex of a child.  That depends on the 
intervention, or the absence, of the other factor in sex determination - the 
hormones.  Whatever the genetic make-up of the embryo, the foetus will only 
develop as a male if male hormones are present, and it will only develop as a 
female if male hormones are absent... It is only by looking at where 
development has gone wrong that scientists have been able to build a picture of 
what happens during normal development.  These studies have shown that male 
hormones are the crucial factor in determining the sex of a child.

"...so the embryonic brain takes some time before it begins to acquire a 
specific sexual identity... In broad terms, the natural template of the brain 
seems to be female.  In normal girls it will develop naturally along female 
lines.

"In boys it is different.  Just as male gender depended on the presence of male 
hormone, so a radical intervention is needed to change the naturally female 
brain into a male pattern.

"This literally mind-altering process is the result of the same process that 
determined those other physical changes - the intervention of the hormones."

This dramatic process, by the way, has profound sociological implications.  It 
explains why men produce more geniuses - but also more idiots.  It explains 
why, *statistically* men are more prone to sexual deviation (no moral 
connotations).  Put simply, there is more that can go wrong in the fetal male 
development.

If you wish to dispute this then show us the studies.  

.62>Women are no more nurturing and thus need to have children to realise their 
.62>destiny than I am because I wear brown pants.   

.69>    or any group of people.  It is the old environment vs genetics debate 
.69>    and, frankly, I'm sick of bigotted claims that human behavior is the 
.69>    sole result of brain chemistry.

.73>    (1) Even if you discover structural differences between male and female
.73>    brains, that's a FAR cry from proving that women derive their greatest
.73>    fulfillment from having children.  In other words, you might be able to

.90>    "Hey baby, want to fulfill your biological destiney with me?" 

These quotes all contain the same assumption.  To make that assumption (62, 69 
& 90 are by Mr Applegate) requires either:

	1.  The distinct inability not only to read but to think about what was 
said;

	2.  The author has no regard for truth (This is also known as telling 
lies).

I *NEVER* equated potential with destiny.  Indeed, I never used the word 
destiny.  I repeat:

"From the enculturalisation of the biological predispositions to 
certain types or modes of behaviour that are genetically and hormonally 
determined."

Biology disposes us to learn certain types of behaviour more easily than 
others.  For example, it's not socialisation that makes boys more aggressive - 
boys are more often punished for aggression than girls.  It's that boys are 
predisposed to learning aggressive behaviours.

This predisposition is encultured.  This means that society develops ways to 
incorporate, channel and sometimes control it.  The individual is then free to 
act within the limits of both biology and society.

Sound thinkers will also note here that while predisposition simply means that 
such things are easier, not being predisposed for certain types of behaviours
does not necessarily mean they cannot be learnt.  It simply means that they are
more difficult.

Further on the lie that I am somehow disposed to biological determinism is that 
I have deliberately ignored the extent to which the standard deviations 
overlap.  Only one person has been intelligent enough to pick up this point, 
which was accidentally passed by (yet again, our good friend Applegate):

.69>    Geschwind, the Harvard neuroscientist who did a lot of the spatial
.69>    studies you so conveniently throw out to prove your b*&*sh*t about
.69>    nurturing (you still haven't proven where this has been conclusively
.69>    shown) says that ON THE AVERAGE men are better at spatial function.

"If there is still a dispute about how sex differences arise there is now no 
argument in the scientific community that such differences exist.  It cannot be 
stressed often enough that this book concerns itself with the *average* man and 
the *average* woman.  In the same way, we might say that men are taller than 
women... Of course some women will be taller than some men, and the tallest 
women may possibly be taller than the tallest man.  But statistically men are 
on average 7 per cent taller, and the tallest person in the world... is 
certainly a man."

We most certainly are talking about averages.  However, friend Applegate (and 
nearly everybody else) forgot to ask the obvious question: what about the 
standard deviations?

.77>    I found .70 fascinating, because it runs almost directly opposite to 
.77>    all my personal experience. I know single exceptions don't disprove
.77>    an adequate statistical analysis, but :-

.77>    I know personal experience should not weigh heavily against
.77>    meticulously collected statistics, but when the statistics seem to run
.77>    directly contrary to one's personal experience it does cause a little
.77>    skepticism.

And indeed, we should always be sceptical.  Scepticism is healthy, but it does 
not mean (as friend Applegate does) that when the evidence is numerous, 
consistent, and sound that we should continue to ignore it.  Scepticism for its 
own sake become cynicism.

.73>    (2) When reading ::SIMPSON's source and noticing their extrapolations
.73>    from certain limited pysiological and psychological studies to try to
.73>    explain behavioral differences between men and women, I can't help
.73>    thinking of the old phrenologists.  These were the folks, back in the

This is yet more poor thinking (aside from the implication that from the fact 
that I quoted one source that I only have one source).  In the first place, the 
author assumes the experiments to be 'limited', although it is not clear in 
what sense.  Pray tell us all, then, in what ways these studies were limited 
when you read them, Jim?

Secondly, the reference to the phrenologists was but a milder form of abuse 
than friend Applegate's hysterical references to Nazism.  To assume that 
studies (largely) in the seventies and  eighties, pursued and published all 
around the world, knowing that they will be read by a hostile audience, would 
so quickly and easily ignore the obvious necessity of ensuring to the greatest 
extent possible that they were free of such unintended biases is in itself to 
insult the ethics and intelligence of those who carried them out.

Let us proceed now to dissect yet another of friend Applegate's stupidities:

.62>anatomy. Hormone levels differ, but so what?  They differ in every 
.62>individual.

Let us assume four biologically normal and healthy adults in their twenties are 
together, two men and two women.  One would assume that the levels of 
testosterone in the men would differ, but only within the normal bounds of men. 
We should be very much surprised if either woman had testosterone levels within 
that same range, since the normal range for women is much lower.  This is 
obviously biological.  The next question is the extent to which such biological 
influences influence less obviously biological things, such as behaviour.

Anastasi developed his continuum of indirectness, which maps the proximity of 
biology (on the left) and culture (on the right), and examines the way 
biological factors influence but become less directly important as we move from 
left to right thanks to the multiplier effect.  The five columns of the map are 
Organs, Hormones, Self - Body, Self - Higher Brain Centres, and Culture & 
Society.  For example, you can trace from the pituitary gland across to 
something like menstrual taboos.  Menstrual taboos are but one example of how a 
society or culture enculturalises biology.

Faust developed this further.  She remapped it into a biosocial feedback model, 
and renamed the multiplier effect the elaborator effect to try to de-emphasise 
the linear connotations of the first word.

One thing becomes abundantly clear: the extent of biological variation, within 
the standard deviations, give rise to a bewildering extent of possible 
sociological responses.  She argues persuasively that biological variation 
should give rise to far greater and flexible forms of gender role.  We need, 
she says, to use biology as a force for choice.

Now, to return to friend Monohan.  While being careful to avoid presumptions, 
it is clear from what he says that he feels somewhat uncomfortable at the idea 
that he and the averages just don't seem to match.  This would be, at least in 
part, that our gender roles are fairly rigidly predicated upon the averages, 
and don't allow very well for normal variations.  

.68>    Without going in to other family details I can say this is typical.
.68>    The males are *not* good at visual and spatial things. There is one
.68>    exception. My father has always had a hobby of making dresses for my
.68>    mother, which indicates *some* aptitude. However, since *every* female
.68>    member of the family over the age of 15 has designed and made clothes
.68>    this is very much the exception.

Except in extreme cases of hormonally abnormal development (from Turner's 
syndrome girls who receive no male hormones at all to males with exceptional 
imbalances of testosterone over female hormones) everybody receives a complex 
mix of hormonal influences during prenatal development.  Not only are the 
amounts significant, but timing is critical as well.  Even aside from 
influences like genetic abnormalities or disease, these processes can be 
significantly affected by things such as the degree of stress on the mother 
during the pregnancy.  As noted earlier, this is more crucial for the male, who 
must radically alter his development away from the female template.  It should 
therefore come as no surprise that many men and women, while still anatomically 
and genetically normal, should exhibit traits which lean towards what the 
opposite sex on average is best at.  

There have been many careful studies on biologically normal children whose 
mothers took hormones because of problems with the pregnancy, and the results 
are consistent.  Boys whose mothers took female hormones were less dominant, 
ambitious, rough etc., and vice versa.  Note that the embarrassment implicit in 
this situation arises only because of rigid gender roles.

However, that takes us some way past the original point.  The object was not 
the discussion of how biological *predisposition to certain types of behaviour* 
is encultured, but whether in fact biology presdisposes the sexes differently.

"In the past ten years there has been an explosion of scientific research into 
what makes the sexes different.  Doctors, scientists, psychologists and 
sociologists, working apart, have produced a body of findings which, taken 
together, paints a remarkably consistent picture.  And the picture is one of 
startling sexual asymmetry."

"Infants are not blank slates, on whom we scrawl instructions for sexually 
appropriate behaviour.  They are born with male or female minds of their own.  
They have, quite literally, made up their minds in the womb, safe from the 
legions of social engineers who impatiently await them."

re .93

That entry is simply riddled with personalized, ad hominem comments.

<hysteria, woolly thinking, distortion, wilful misunderstanding,
<dissembling and deceit have been exceeded.

<Little, clearly, is the operative word, for later you present us with this 
<monumental specimen of irrational thinking:

<...& 90 are by Mr Applegate) requires either:
<1.  The distinct inability not only to read but to think about what was 
<said;
<2.  The author has no regard for truth (This is also known as telling 
<lies).

<Only one person has been intelligent enough to pick up this point, 
<which was accidentally passed by (yet again, our good friend
<Applegate):

<Let us proceed now to dissect yet another of friend Applegate's
<stupidities:

It is very difficult for me to read your otherwise serious attempts to
grapple with a complex subject, when your writings belittle and otherwise
insult so many of us.

			herb

    
    ::simpson (funny how now I know your first name, I can't bring
    	myself to use it),
    Frequently the reason people hire professional writers to popularize some 
    theory or other is that the theory doesn't really make it on its own 
    and because they want to make money selling expensive books to gullible 
    people who are too willing to accept easy (radical) explanations of the
    world around them that fit well with their prejudices.  The trick is to 
    selectively extract research results and then put them all together to 
    make it look like you've proven something or other.  I'm sure there are 
    people who still believe Von Daniken proved that creatures from outer 
    space built the pyramids or that laetrille cures cancer.  I don't
    know if Dr. Moir is guilty of this or not.  I doubt that I could be
    sure just by reading her book, whether I carefully perused the
    bibliography or not.  Anyway, in all your ranting and name-calling and
    telling us we don't know what we're talking about you've done little
    but convince us that you are likely the one who doesn't know.  Rather
    than cluttering up your brain with all these esoteric facts and
    questionable theories, rather than trying to intimidate everyone with 
    dazzling displays of sesquipedalian virtuousity (please don't mistake
    that for praise), you might want to work harder at developing some
    understanding for and empathy with your fellow human being...
    
    Ah, skip it, I can tell you aren't listening.
    
    						- Vick
    
    

    David,
    
    1. I didn't know if you were the same Simpson that frequented the box.
       Although I do know that you were putting the same information in
       the box recently.
    2. Your comment about womannotes didn't produce fury and distress,
       I just said that you were rude and didn't listen.
    3. I personally perfer to call people by their given name rather than
       their sur name, esp when they know and use my given name.
    
    Bonnie

re: .93

I'm amazed at the amount of time you have to write all this in here.
It's pretty interesting and obviously shows quite a lot of effort on 
your part to get to the bottom of sex differences, as they may be 
related to brain and bodily differences.  Also, I have to laugh at
the seriousness with which you take all this and the effort you make
to disprove everything else being written here.  Obviously, nobody has
studied the subject to the depth you have.   Obviously, nobody can raise
the slightest point of objection to the great Herr professor!;-)

At the risk of being called a woolly thinking hysteric, could I just ask
a simple question?  You did bring up the standard deviation thing.  And
even though biology predisposes the sexes differently, what about the
reality of individual differences.  What about "mind over matter"?  
Aren't people really more unique than they are the same?

Here's a quote from the book "Awakenings" by Oliver Sacks:

"               ......That infinite equation, which represents the
total being of each person from moment to moment, cannot be reduced
to a question of systems, or to a commensuration of 'stimulus' and
'response': we are compelled to speak of whole natures, of worlds,
and (in Leibniz's term) of the 'compossibility' between them."

So, in spite of our predispositions, aren't we finally all unique and
unpredictable mysteries?    

-- mardy

btw: What has this all to do with a Mid-Life Crisis?

    I know this has nothing to do with this topic but in reply to one
    within this note:
    
    One of the things I've enjoyed about noting in this network is the
    anonymity.  I don't know anyone in this network, and the mystery in that
    is welcomed.  Also it has let me open up which is great.
    
    I personally don't care to meet my anonymous friends in NOTES. 
    I enjoy the illusions and the images I have of each.  And upon anyone
    meeting me, may be disillusioned.  This is just another form of
    communication that leaves some fun in it.
    
    It's like penpals.  It's fun exchanging notes, photos, dreams and
    such with someone who've never met in person.  So what!! 

    Geeez, I just can't seem to make my swan song stick.   
    
    You asked me to prove my points when my point all along has been that
    the brain is a highly complex and not too well understood organ.  Is it
    our entire humanity described by 10 - 100 billion neurons?  Does that
    explain free will, our lusts and dreams and everything else that makes
    us human?  
   
    "The brain structure between men and women is grossly identical"
    
    And i might add anything else beyond these "gross similarities" have
    not been fully documented by any reputable neuro scientist to determine
    that there is anything in a male or female brain (and forget the
    hormones for one minute) that make any significant difference in
    behavior. 
   
    
    You're little chart on function, location and summary
    deoesn't show anything.  There are just as many studies with amnesia
    victims who can remember an entire flood of emotions, language, and
    incidents by the stimulation of a single neuron.  The entire brain is a
    parallel operation so to say  that anything is localized only in a
    particular  assumes that the researcher has studied the entire brain
    not just the surface.  To the best of my knowledge open brain surgery
    hasn't been performed yet.  Wernicke's studies showed a localization of
    certain  functions, but again this is the surface not deep within the
    frontal lobe itself.  All research deep within the various lobes has
    been done on dead people.  And one thing you can say about dead people
    is, their behavior is pretty boring.  All of your  supposed evidence has
    been done by clinical psychiatrists.  I don't doubt that damage to certain
    areas of the brain will cause certain language or sensory problems.
    Again this refers to the "gross similarity" you  talked about earlier.  
    But to say that women have a larger corpus callosum and thus have more 
    emotions is laughable.
      
    Now, on to neurons.  There are hundreds of different types of neurons in
    everyone's brain.  And again there is no conclusive evidence as to why
    certain ones show up in certain areas.  There are theories (and God
    knows you have enough theories), but since you
    claim to have done extensive studying on this subject please answer the
    following:
    
    Why do memory functions seem to be governed by neurons with many short
    dendrites 
    and learning seem to be governed by neurons with long striated,
    but few dendrites?  Please also discuss the effects of cyclic nucleotide
    concentrations on the frequency of neuron firing.  After all they
    aren't much good if they aren't firing, right? Are you saying that the
    neurons in a females' brain have different cyclic nucleotide levels
    than males?  As Mars Blackman (another emminent scientist) would say, 
    "do you know , huh, do you?"  You conveniently look at the big picture,
    but in my opinion, you can only do that if you have a thorough
    understanding of the details.  Which you and most of your psych pals do
    not. But, I'm willing to give you the benefit of a doubt.  Send me a
    snail brain that you have mapped and constructed out of DNA material 
    (including all of the proteins and enzymes) , by hand, to
    my mail stop in Detroit. 
    
    "Every refutalbe study shows the foetus is undifferentiated the first
    few weeks of life"
    
    Based on what?  Amniocentisus fluids? Scans?  Please show me an example
    of someone with two x chromosomes and no y who is male. 
   
    There is 
    much more we don't know than we do know about behavior, the origin of life
    and the brain/mind.   It simply is theory.  The previous reply with
    the quote from Oliver Sack said it best.
    
    Until we start developing carbon copies of even a lizard's brain, nobody
    will know for sure. Even then, who can be sure what
    happened phylogenetically and what happened ontogenetically.
    
    And finally, biogical determinism sounds a lot like destiny to me.
    But, then again, your writing is convoluted and filled with 
    insult that many people can find assumptions that are remarkable only in 
    the fact that you have the gall to actually write them.

    
    SA

    Is it a sign of a mid life crisis that I feel the need to steal
    an x00 ?  I hope not 'cos I'm only 23!
    
    
    Jerome.

re .97

>I'm amazed at the amount of time you have to write all this in here.

If you think I work 9-5 then you're sadly mistaken.

>related to brain and bodily differences.  Also, I have to laugh at
>the seriousness with which you take all this and the effort you make
>to disprove everything else being written here.  Obviously, nobody has
>studied the subject to the depth you have.   Obviously, nobody can raise
>the slightest point of objection to the great Herr professor!;-)

Laugh at my seriousness?  It's rather an important issue, is it not?  The 
sociological implications are enormous.  As to the level of study, its 
immediately apparent that the objections are based on prejudice, ignorance and 
poor thinking.  Does it not strike you as in any way important that while no 
solid argument has been mounted against, Bonnie (whose background is in 
biology) has said she agrees with much of what I have said?  No, of course not.  
Rather than examine the evidence and *think* about it people prefer rambling 
on about the fact that when people say stupid things I say so - and why.  Of 
course, they never address the why.

>At the risk of being called a woolly thinking hysteric, could I just ask
>a simple question?  You did bring up the standard deviation thing.  And
>even though biology predisposes the sexes differently, what about the
>reality of individual differences.  What about "mind over matter"?  
>Aren't people really more unique than they are the same?

This is an important question.  

The issue is not biology versus sociology (Applegate is wrong again).  It's 
not even about how much each 'contributes'.  It's about how they interrelate.

>btw: What has this all to do with a Mid-Life Crisis?

For my assertion that the mid-life crisis is general to men to be true it 
requires that there be innate differences between men and women.  It is 
today's 'truth', based essentially upon second-wave feminist ideology, that 
there are no essential differences between the sexes beyond the trivia of 
genitalia, and that all behaviour can be explained sociologically.  Someone 
has to be wrong.

It is prima facie absurd to suppose that the mind is not affected by prenatal 
development in the same way as the body, unless you presuppose that the mind 
is distinct from the body in which case you then have to show how they can and 
do interreact.  We know how chemicals can alter personalities - how then can 
you ignore the effects of the intense chemical treatment the brain is exposed 
to before birth?  We know that chemicals can have permanent effects on the 
brain - it is absurd to say that prenatal hormones can or necessarily do not.  
The contention now is that this intense exposure to different types of 
chemicals (hormones) at different times during the most critical phase of any 
human's development, in response to but not necessarily limited by genetic 
instructions, has permanent effects on the brain.  Further, since these 
effects are caused by the processes that effect sexual identity they affect 
the mind in parallel, and these mind/body parallels affects behaviour in later 
life.  There are clinically measurable morphological brain differences between 
the sexes (and as for Applegate's preposterous assertion that open brain 
surgery is not performed - it is so common I have seen such surgery on 
television!  I and millions of others have seen surgeons probing the brain and 
studying the conscious responses of the patient).

To return to standard deviations.  There is considerable overlap between men 
and women generally, but the averages are undeniably skewed to one sex or the 
other in various tests of skill and ability.  Studies repeatedly also show 
that where a person of one sex has been exposed to significant opposite sex 
hormones before birth they tend to show similar tendencies of ability and 
behaviour to that sex, not their own (Ie, girls become tomboys, boys become 
sissies).

This is where the cultural implications become profound, even, I would 
suggest, dangerous.  For if it is true that men on average have better 
visuo-spatial abilities then it means, for example, that more men than women 
will be architects.  The danger lies in drawing the conclusion (as was done in 
the past) that because fewer women have these abilities that it is somehow not 
a woman's 'place' to be an architect even when she has the necessary talent.  
This is the threat perceived by the feminists.  The possibility is real, but I 
further contend that denying the reality of biology on behaviour is not going 
to save them in the long run.

The one aspect of behaviour which even sociologists agree cannot be properly 
understood or explained purely sociologically is male aggression.  Yet there 
is remarkable resistance to understanding female passivity the same way.  
Frankly, I suggest that this hypocracy is allowed because it suits many 
feminists to paint men as tainted and therefore inferior.  Suggestion of 
female passivity (even if defined as such only relative to male aggression) is 
seen as bad because the feminists are judging themselves by masculine values!  
(e.g., ambition, drive, competitiveness, desire for dominance are all 
masculine traits.  On the one hand feminism decries these as ultimately 
destructive, but at the same time decries women who aren't womanning the 
barricades).

Mind over matter?  I have already explained the essential difference between 
predisposition to types of behaviour and determinism.  I have further made 
much of the manner in which we encultiralise biology.  I have repeatedly 
acknowledged that the range of biological variation argues for more flexible, 
not more rigid gender roles.  We need cultural niches for tomboys and 
sissies.  What is your point?

>Aren't people really more unique than they are the same?

This is a fascinating question.  The answer is really a dichotomy.  On the one 
hand each person is unique, but at the same time everything we are is built 
upon common foundations.  Unfortunately for the idealists, we cannot be 
exactly what we would like to be, because we have certain abilities in some 
areas but not in others.  A woman may be hard-driving, ambitious, ruthless and 
successful (defined by, say, the current criteria of business), but she will 
be what she is because of the influence of male hormones which prenatally 
predisposed her to such types of behaviour (the types being aggressive, the 
sphere only happens to be business), and she will always be outnumbered by men 
in such activities where such qualities are necessary because the simple fact 
is that most women will not be thus disposed.

It therefore follows that I cannot (and have not and do not) argue for the 
exclusion of either sex from spheres of activities on the basis of sex, but it 
does follow that it is unreasonable firstly to expect the numbers of each sex 
in such spheres to be demographically or ideologically 'balanced' (because the 
balance of abilities will not be thus 'balanced'), and secondly that the new 
synthesis of feminity and maculinity can only succeed when people start 
working from reality instead of fantasy.

    I am not saying that brain surgery is not possible.  I am saying that
    probing is only done at the  outer most layers (this is why some brain
    tumors are inoperable).  I have not heard of any probing done on live
    patients to the brain stem.  Which is the same saying that the
    brain is still pretty much a mystery.  You still have a real bent
    towards testosterone and estrogen.  What I and others are  saying that
    without  a thorough understanding of the internal dynamics of the
    neuron and it's related processing capabilities, as well as evolution
    vs ontogenetic physiological changes, you're entire assertation is
    flimsy and rooted solely in conjecture.
    
    f

re .101

>>If you think I work 9-5 then you're sadly mistaken.
right, I must be.   Clearly, you w(c)ouldn't do all this from 9-5.

>>Laugh at my seriousness?  It's rather an important issue, is it not? 
right, it is.  and you are serious! sorry

>>This is an important question.  
right, it is.  

>>>btw: What has this all to do with a Mid-Life Crisis?
thanks for clearing that up

>>Someone has to be wrong.
right, they do.

><What is your point?
no point, ..guess you're right.

>>>Aren't people really more unique than they are the same?
>>The answer is really a dichotomy. 
Yes, how about this:  a question of "cognitive dissonance" ?

>>working from reality instead of fantasy.
well, sometimes it's hard to know which is which.

In conclusion, pretty good stuff.  Should I say irrefutable??

btw: I read a really great readable book on the mind-brain problem 
this summer entitled THE THREE-POUND UNIVERSE.     I really liked it.
But I can't remember the two authors names right now.

thanks,
Mardy

re: .102

I would think that HE would have to agree with the 1rst part of what you said.
But I don't know about the second part.  It might put too much emphasis on
the individual neuron rather than the collective, group behavior.  I seem
to remember there's a new theory called "neural Darwinism" by Edelman which
says that large groups of neurons interact.   Also, there's still a deep
philosophical problem re the nature of consciousness itself....

Here's to mid-life crises! ;-)

-- mardy

    in re .101
    
    David, for the record, I think I qualified even my agreement with
    your first note, and there is much in the subsequent ones that
    I have a problem with. I do think that what you say is interesting,
    however, and think that you will have a much better chance of
    developing a dialogue on the subject the more you tone down your
    hostility/combativeness to those who disagree with you. (and I feel
    you have toned down some, which I appreciate.) However, I'm not
    an expert in sociobiology or psychology, so while I find your 
    ideas interesting to discuss, I am no 'expert' to turn to in support.
    
    :-)
    
    Bonnie

re Bonnie

As a biologist, do you agree that:

- all human feotuses begin life female?

- the genetic sex imperative is effected by hormones?

- that the hormones which effect anatomical changes to the rest of the body 
must effect the brain?

- that since specific brain functions are a function of neuronal patterning 
we can properly deduce things by testing brain areas without being 
necessarily concerned with individual neuronal construction?

- that there are clinically measurable morphological differences in brain 
structures between the sexes?

    
    
    
    
    
    
    
    
    
    
    
    You have said that a woman's occupation is secondary to her biological 
potential (which I assume means having and caring for babies) and that she 
has no 
control over it (.25). Then you said that this is something that they can 
control, but have to learn (.93).  You said that there are differences in 
the male and female brain and one of them is neuron structure (.93).  Now 
    you are saying that this is irrelavant (.106).  I am sure if I studied
    your tomes and editted out the references to my stupidity I could find
    some more contradcitions  

Granted specific brain functions can be mapped by patterns of neuron 
firing.  This is known as connectionism.  Most neural net applications use 
connectionism as the mechansim for learning. There is a fundamental 
difference between the binary off/on nature of a bit and the neuron.  
This is the ability to adapt.  Neurons use enzymes as a type of input.  The 
enzymes (made up of DNA, the same as the hormones you love to ramble on 
about) interact with the neuron's proteins in a sort of lock and key 
fashion.  This means that the same enzyme can have a different effect whne 
it comes in contact with either a different part of the neurons' wall or a 
different neuron.  Literally, the protein will fold up on itself and bind 
to the enzyme and the neuron will fire (or not) based on the combined input.  
This 3D nature is akin to a computer program folding up on 
    itself and executing its instructions in a different order based on its
    input.  Because of the 
failure of connectionism in determining some types of fuzzy input (something 
humans do rotely), theory is now shifting towards the internal dymnamics of 
the neuron as being more and more responsible for the information 
processing capabilties of the brain.  There is no backpropagation or delta 
rule in the brain.  So, we do have to be concerned with neuron structure if 
we are going to talk about how the brain works.  This is why I maintain 
that the anatomical differences you state are insufficient.  It is too easy 
of an answer.  For one thing, we don't know that much about it. 
    We still can't do open brain surgery (opening the brain up 
completely, to brain stem, on a living patient) and watch conscious behavior.  
    Even if we could, the neuron is too important to dismiss as being 
    something we don't have to be concerned with.
      
You are really hung up on 
ON THE AVERAGE.  i.e. Men are ON THE AVERAGE more competative, Women are ON 
THE AVERAGE more nurturing (.49), etc. Presumably this is due to the 
anatomical differences in brain structure caused by hormonal effects during 
(and after?) gestation.  In the mid seventies, around the same time your 
main reference was published,  William Shokley (another genetcist) tried to 
show that people of 
African origin were ON THE AVERAGE less intelligent than Europeans.  This was 
due to anatomical differences in brain anatomy. Your statements that 
hormones affect the brain have never been disputed.  It is the conclusions 
you draw that I have a problem with.

re: .107

>    We still can't do open brain surgery (opening the brain up 
>completely, to brain stem, on a living patient) and watch conscious behavior.  
>    Even if we could, the neuron is too important to dismiss as being 
>    something we don't have to be concerned with.
      
What would we see if we could "watch conscious behavior", I wonder ?  

In those famous experiments of Wilder Penfield, where he went around probing
the brain, stirring up consciousness of forgotten scenes simultaneously with
present consciousness, such a consciousness would be an interesting type of 
consciousness to "watch" perhaps?   How far into the brain, and where would
we have to go in it to watch such dual consciousness?

I think I'd have to agree the neuron is too important to dismiss in any case.

-- mardy

>re Bonnie

>As a biologist, do you agree that:

>- all human feotuses begin life female?

    yes
    
>- the genetic sex imperative is effected by hormones?

    yes
    
>- that the hormones which effect anatomical changes to the rest of the body 
>must effect the brain?

    yes
    
>- that since specific brain functions are a function of neuronal patterning 
>we can properly deduce things by testing brain areas without being 
>necessarily concerned with individual neuronal construction?

>- that there are clinically measurable morphological differences in brain 
>structures between the sexes?
    
    I don't know

re .107

Applegate, you really are a most tiresome fellow.  Did you take a course in 
sloppy thinking?

>    You have said that a woman's occupation is secondary to her biological 
>potential (which I assume means having and caring for babies) and that she 
>has no control over it (.25). Then you said that this is something that they 
>can control, but have to learn (.93).  

A sterling example of how to ignore context and thus distort meaning to suit 
your own ends.

.23:

>made.  Their style and type of work was also secondary to the realisation of 
>their biological potential, both because society expected it and they had no 
>control over it.

This portion of the argument was concerned with the historical role of women.  
(Note the use of word 'had', friend Applegate, as opposed to your word 'has').  
Such fertility controls as existed were primitive and essentially ineffectual, 
their bodies were male property and society (overtly) insisted that sex was for 
procreation.  I think it safe to say they had (essentially) no control over 
their fertility (biological potential).

.93, on the other hand, did not address this issue.  Indeed, I'm hard pressed 
to identify a passage which supports the contention that I said they could 
control 'it', although if you were to examine the current situation I would 
agree that with contraception, abortion and suffrage women can effectively 
control their fertility.  No contradiction here.

>You said that there are differences in the male and female brain and one of 
>them is neurone structure (.93).  Now you are saying that this is irrelavant 
>(.106).  

In .93 (and in other places) I made specific mention of differences in the 
neuronal structure in the hypothalamus.  However, what I said in .106 was this:

"- that since specific brain functions are a function of neuronal patterning 
we can properly deduce things by testing brain areas without being 
necessarily concerned with individual neuronal construction?"

Firstly, do you notice the phrase beginning with "without being necessarily 
concerned..."?  In English that's called a qualification.  It modifies the 
proposition.  Necessarily means that something must be so and not otherwise.  
My question could not assume the necessity of reference to neuronal structure 
because it was asking in part whether such reference was itself necessary for 
the premise to be true.  

Secondly, asking whether a person agrees with a proposition is a way of 
ascertaining that person's position on an issue.  In and of itself it does not 
imply any assumption of position on the questioner's behalf.  The note you took 
it from did nothing but seek to ascertain Bonnie's position on a list of 
things.

Thus, you are wrong in two ways and have shown no contradiction.

>I am sure if I studied your tomes and editted out the references to my 
>stupidity I could find some more contradcitions  

Only in the sense that anything greater than zero is 'more'...

>connectionism as the mechansim for learning. There is a fundamental 
>difference between the binary off/on nature of a bit and the neuron.  

Really?  Oh, you do surprise me!  Go away and teach your grandmother to suck 
eggs - you'll have more luck and a better reception.

>rule in the brain.  So, we do have to be concerned with neuron structure if 
>we are going to talk about how the brain works.  This is why I maintain 
>that the anatomical differences you state are insufficient.  It is too easy 

Indeed so, and I have asserted from the beginning that neuronal structures were 
important, albeit with an emphasis on the hypothalamus because it is 
essentially linked to sexual functions and because repeated studies show 
differences in its neuronal structure between the sexes.

However, that I asked Bonnie whether we can validly deduce truths about the 
brain's functions without necessarily referring to individual neurones (I 
believe we can) says nothing about their function or relative importance.

>(and after?) gestation.  In the mid seventies, around the same time your 
>main reference was published,  William Shokley (another genetcist) tried to 
>show that people of 
>African origin were ON THE AVERAGE less intelligent than Europeans.  This was 
>due to anatomical differences in brain anatomy.

I'm certainly aware of how dangerous such an abuse of science can be.  However, 
you have failed to notice that my assertion and Shokley's are significantly 
different.

He tried to show that intelligence was racially linked.  I'm trying to show 
that people are predisposed to certain types of behaviour because of their sex. 
The advantage I have is that the prenatal processes are qualitatively different 
between the sexes, whereas they are qualitatively the same between the races.

In other words, a black male child and a white male child will undergo 
physical processes that are essentially the same, but are different in 
important ways to female children of whatever race.

As a corollary to this, he ignored cultural conditioning as a determinant in 
intelligence, whereas I have consistently argued that it is the mix of 
biological predispositions and their enculturalisation that are important.
 
>due to anatomical differences in brain anatomy. Your statements that 
>hormones affect the brain have never been disputed.

This by itself was never the contention, so why bring it up now?  The 
contention is that hormones determine brain structure, which in turn influences 
behaviour, and that these differences will be along sexual lines because of the 
different types and amounts of hormones the body receives during fetal 
development and puberty.

This distinction is important.  Studies show that the brain's receptiveness to 
hormones is directly related to prenatal development.  Developed male brains 
are more receptive to testosterone than female brains, and vice versa.  For 
example, giving children opposite sex hormones when treating certain disorders 
does not produce the corresponding behaviour traits that giving the hormones 
prenatally does.  In other words, give a boy oestrogen (except in very large 
and prolonged amounts) and you won't turn him into a sissy, but do it 
prenatally and you will.  This is part of the evidence that timing is a 
critical factor.  It's not just what you get but when you get it that counts.

>You are really hung up on ON THE AVERAGE.  i.e. Men are ON THE AVERAGE more 
>competative, Women are ON THE AVERAGE more nurturing (.49), etc. Presumably 

Yep, I'm so hung up on the average I had to introduce standard deviations...

It's important to acknowledge these averages.  Until we do we will continue to 
build flawed ideologies that don't fit us all that well and therefore make a 
lot of people unnecessarily unhappy.  We are all bound by our limitations, but 
whereas ideologists like to confuse equality of opportunity with equality of 
ability nature doesn't.

Re .109

>- that since specific brain functions are a function of neuronal patterning 
>we can properly deduce things by testing brain areas without being 
>necessarily concerned with individual neuronal construction?

Bonnie, what is your problem with this assertion?

    in re .110
    
    I don't have a problem with the assertion I just don't know enough
    about the subject to say anything about it.
    
    A recent issue of Science News btw has an article on differences
    in male and female brains. It appears to support a lot of what
    David has been saying.
    
    Bonnie

    Im 51 and I haven't gone thru my mid life crisis yet. Did i miss
    something?

    Maybe not yet.  Or maybe you had a mild case and never noticed it.  :^)
    
    
    					- Vick

.113> Im 51 and I haven't gone thru my mid life crisis yet. Did i miss
.113> something?
    
    Yes, I've been reading these notes and was wondering just when it was
    going to hit me ... I'm not too far past 40 and just assumed that I was
    too young ... yes... that's it ... I'm too young....I like the sound of
    that phrase ....
    
    Bubba

    re: .115 and .113
    
    Well, praise be!  I tried to question the general applicability of this
    idea a ways back, but the brain surgeons and their pseudo-scientific
    babble engulfed us in 300+ line strings. Let's just resolve *not* to
    have a mid-life crisis.
    
    Kit 

    re .116
    
    Before you dismiss the evidence as pseudo-scientific why don't you
    study it first?  Or is that too logical?

I think I've been going through a mid-life crisis since I was 21.  I've 
always worked in a metropolitan area in the high-tech field but I'd much 
rather be off in the mountains someplace raising goats or cattle or 
gerbils or gila monsters or ....   Oh well...

    Re:  .118
    
    How old are you now?  You are not in your mid-life crisis when you
    think you'd rather be raising Gerbils.  It's when you leave your job
    to raise Gerbils that you are in your mid-life crisis.  :^)
    
    - Vick

    
    if your are a man over 40 and are losing your hair, you might as
    well be a gerbil ..
    

<<< Note 658.119 by R2ME2::BENNISON "Victor L. Bennison DTN 381-2156 ZK2-3/R56" >>>

    Re:  .118
    
>    How old are you now?  

	I'm 36.

>	You are not in your mid-life crisis when you
>    think you'd rather be raising Gerbils.  It's when you leave your job
>    to raise Gerbils that you are in your mid-life crisis.  :^)
    
	I've gotten to the point of doing something like that a couple of 
times, but each time I'm overcome with rationality (or is it cowardice).

Ron

    >if your are a man over 40 and are losing your hair, you might as
    >well be a gerbil ..
    
    I'm not sure I follow you.  I'm 44 and haven't had much hair since I
    was 20.  Why would I be better off as a Gerbil?
    
    					- Vick

Anyway, I always thought gerbils had a heck of a sex life.

				Steve

    
    re; .123
    
    ours always did.  and how long can a midlife crisis last when you're
    life expectency is 3-6 years?  ;)
    
    p.s.  I am not slighting midlife crises, I take it very seriously (see
    658.13)
    
    -Jody
    

Here's a poem by Adrienne Rich that could describe breaking through 
to the other side of the mid-life crisis:

	A lifetime
	is too narrow
	to understand it all
	beginning with the huge rockshelves
			that underlie all life.

	But there comes a time
	(perhaps this is one of them)
	when we have to take ourselves more seriously
		or die;
	when we have to pull back
			from the incantations
			the rhythms we'ved moved to thoughtlessly,
		and disenthrall ourselves,
		bestow ourselves to silence,
				or to a severer listening.

    
     So what if you find that you can make a better living raising gerbils
    than doing whatever it is that your doing now. Does dropping your job
    and chasing after a dream that  also happens to be profitable
    constitute mid life crisis?
    
    Tony
    

    Quote I found in my "quote for the day" notebook
    
    Forty is the old age of youth,
    Fifty is the youth of old age.
    			Victor Hugo

re .126

>     So what if you find that you can make a better living raising gerbils
>    than doing whatever it is that your doing now. Does dropping your job
>    and chasing after a dream that  also happens to be profitable
>    constitute mid life crisis?

No, but it can be a reasonable response to one.