[coldtea]

Maybe it's based on millions of years of biological differences in their capacities and functions (starting from body strength and role in reproduction), plus differences in social roles, of which some of the latter might be arbitrary, but some are necessary adjustments every historical society understood.

[tzs]

Which of these biological differences in capacities and functions make it so that girls should not be punished by physical pain but it is OK to punish boys with a physical pain using a method that often leaves permanent scars and lasting psychological damage?

[CGMthrowaway]

Men bear greater physical risk (war, dangerous labor etc) and boys/young men have always been subject to violent "rites of passage" that prepare them for this.

Girls and women receive greater physical protection, as required to manage reproductive capacity and long‑term demographic stability.

[Barrin92]

It's not even remotely clear to me what this has to do with the topic at hand because insofar as gender plays into bullying girls tend to be more impacted than boys, and secondly corporal punishment and 'disciplining' women by men was historically normalized.

The Singaporean habit of caning is a very modern practice of industrial and military society that has no biological analog, an offshoot of mass discipline society of the 20th century and gender roles of Victorian Britain where groups of men needed to be 'whipped into shape' and women were feminine and pure, but it sure is convenient to randomly invoke biology when one runs out of arguments

[array_key_first]

Historical societies are... historical. We shouldn't be looking to them. They didn't have the technology we have today.

Yes boys are strong. You know what's stronger than a boy? Gun. Girl with gun is stronger. It's not fucking 400 AD and this isn't Rome and we don't have slaves. Things are different today.

Yes, there are biological differences, but they definitely matter the least now as opposed to ever. Think about jobs. Women can do basically every modern job a man can do, and definitely the high paying ones. Now think about ancient societies and why that wasn't the case.

[almostjazz]

If strength is relevant, should particularly weak boys be "treated like girls"?

Should particularly strong girls be "treated like boys"?

Should girls and women without functioning reproductive systems be treated like boys?

What differences in social roles have been proven "necessary"?

Is the fact that chimpanzees do things a certain way remotely good evidence that we should do something that way too?

Answer key:

- no

- no

- no

- which gamete you supply?

- no

[coldtea]

>What differences in social roles have been proven "necessary"?

Given that we're in a huge democraphic crisis which will bring untold disaster and misery, a huge depression crisis, marriage crises, and a loneliness epidemic, perhaps we're not the best arbiters of whether they've been proven "necessary" or not.

As for the questions, to some degree they indeed do, so partly yes, but also those differences in treatment are not on a case by case basis, but on average.

[teiferer]

> huge democraphic crisis

If the west would stop vilifying people of different skin color and continent of origin, we'd realize that humanity as a whole does not have that much of a demographic problem. "We are too many" as an argument to keep borders closed and "we are too few, get more kids" are incompatible arguments, unless people are honest about racism.

[coldtea]

>we'd realize that humanity as a whole does not have that much of a demographic problem.

Humanity as a whole has a demographic problem. A few countries are just outliers (being still quite above > 2.1), but nowhere enough to offset anything at a global scale, and besides, they're on the decline too, just earlier in the curve.

Second, caring about your ethnic culture is not the same as "vilifying people of different skin color and continent of origin". It's just not treating nations as comprised of interchangable consumer/worker units whose shared culture and history (or lack thereof) doesn't matter.

Most countries have a long history tied to a culture created from one or a handful of ethnicites, they're not just pieces of land for settling associated with a civic contract, like the us has been (and of course even that came at the erasure of the native cultures and populations).

>"We are too many" as an argument to keep borders closed and "we are too few, get more kids" are incompatible arguments

They're totally compatible if you don't treat people like interchangable units arbitrarily exchanged, but as humans with a past, a history, an ethnicity, a culture, and so on, they've build over time.

Same way you wouldn't just exchange one of your kids with another kid, but that doesn't mean you think the other people's kids are inferior.

[teiferer]

Ethnicity and culture are not static concepts. They change over time. The culture in central Europe, North America, the Middle East etc. 500 years ago looked very different from today. The ethnicity too. People have always migrated and that's part of where ethnicity and culture are coming from in the first place. And that's a good thing.

Nobody talks about individuals or people as arbitrarily interchangeable units. That's a populist exaggeration.

The "natural state" of a culture and an ethnic group is the continuous exchange and intermingling with other cultures and ethnic groups. It's a success of the nationalist right to make people believe that it's the opposite.

[giraffe_lady]

None of that is given.

[cpursley]

I always find it really amusing that the most pro trust the science people who are in total agreement with all the evolution theories are often also the ones who are the first to be in complete denial that us humans might actually share some characteristics with our closest genetic relatives (chimpanzees).

[TurdF3rguson]

Bonobos are just as close and they're matriarchal. They're a very different species.

[Quarrel]

They're chimps that are on the other side of the Congo river (and both types of genus Pan can't swim).

They're super close to chimps (and definitely much closer than us), rather than "a very different species".

[cpursley]

Yes, and that’s a good point too. Pretty big difference between the sexes with them as well.

[akimbostrawman]

>the most pro trust the science people who are in total agreement with all the evolution theories

Like with most religions which "the science" very much qualities for at this point, there believers will just pick and choose what to believe and use to get there way.

[teiferer]

How on earth is that an acceptable argument for physical abuse that is directed purely at boys?

I'm not saying girls should be beaten too. But the ethical blindness here is striking.

Besides, girls are just as much capable of bullying as boys are. Society might have taught them to use different methods, but that doesn't make it any more acceptable or any less vicious.

[dude250711]

The big idea lately is to ignore all of that and just give everyone equal rights but unequal responsibilities.

[mock-possum]

Or maybe it’s based on bigotry

[AussieWog93]

Nah, I have girls and there's definitely a biological difference there even at a young age. They're much more sensitive to more subtle negative feedback in a way that boys just aren't.

[teiferer]

And that's why boys should be beaten when they misbehave?

[AussieWog93]

I'm not saying boys should be beaten whenever they misbehave, but girls are definitely more tuned into the way they're being perceived by others.

With girls, you'll get the same corrective effect from an uncomfortable grimace as you would a wooden spoon.

I'll also add since this is about bullying, the type of bullying behaviours girls engage in is much less physical and a lot more underhanded. It's much harder to correctly identify who's the victim and who's the perpetrator.

[xyzelement]

I think that's the wrong question.

Kids need "an approach" that helps them learn necessary boundaries. That approach differs by gender (I have both boys and girls and that's obvious)

[simgt]

You have some data point at home so you extrapolate on the entire population?

[coldtea]

We just have millenia of history, experience in every country and culture, and countless scientific papers on the matter, but please go on with your question...

[antics9]

Well, having both girls and boys, I can concur.

[zamadatix]

While I hold the same conclusion as you, individuals chiming in to concur based on their own experience is nothing more than a way to validate what certain people of the time & place commonly believe to be true.

E.g. if people were apt to believe girls preferred green peppers more often than boys, there will always be plenty who say "Well, having both girls and boys, I can concur". It could be true, it could be false, or the cause could be something else. E.g., because people think there are certain differences it shapes differences in development which lead to some of them actually being more common for nothing more than the sum of environmental factors - even if those biases only started as misconceptions.

Whichever it actually is, there will usually be large segments of the populations who would observe it to be conflicting things from an individual at-home view and it takes a lot of work & really good data to be able to make a meaningful claim about what and why differences exist.

[kelipso]

There a line after which too much science fanboyism can get a person to tie themself in knots.