|
Davenport, an assistant professor at St. Mary’s in counseling and family services, has a degree in psychology from Texas A&M in College Station; a master’s degree in Marriage and Family Therapy from St. Mary’s; and a doctorate in Human Development and Family Studies from Iowa State University in Ames. She has extensive experience in providing family, couples and individual therapy.
Moderator Diane Duesterhoeft of St. Mary’s noted that one of the Marianist charisms is respect for human dignity and reminded those present to “communicate in the spirit of respect for each other’s opinions, values and beliefs.”
Maloney began by noting that the definitions for sex and gender are moving from being considered two separate areas (with sex defined as biological and anatomical differences between men and women and gender as sociological or cultural differences), to the belief that the two terms are strongly related and one cannot be looked at without considering the other.
The core of her talk focused on the recent firestorm raised by statements made by the president of Harvard University, Dr. Lawrence Summers, at a conference for the National Bureau of Economic Research on Jan. 14. The topic of the forum was “Diversifying the Science and Engineering Workforce” and was to address the underrepresentation of women in these fields.
“Lawrence Summers set out to be provocative,” said Maloney. That, he certainly was. Summers presented three hypotheses for women’s underrepresentation. These were: 1) the “high-powered job theory” — that women choose not to work in demanding, 80-hr. workweek jobs; 2) that women’s brains, or capabilities for processing “high end” math and science, are inherently different, operating at a lower level then men’s in these subjects; and 3) that different patterns of socialization are involved.
It was the second hypothesis — that the female brain is not as highly developed as the male’s when it comes to math and science — that forced two subsequent letters of apology from the Harvard president, the second being demanded by the university’s faculty. They have since issued a vote of “no confidence” in their president, who insisted he was misunderstand and merely meant to spark debate.
Addressing the faculty, however, he conceded, “The issue of gender differences is far more complex than comes through in my comments, and my remarks about variability went beyond what research has established.”
“He made a statement that we have all heard at some point in our lives,” said Maloney, “(that) girls are not at good at math or they’re not good at science.” She noted studies done in ‘70s and ‘80s revealed that when girls are told they are not good at these things, it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. “We had started, as a society and as an education community, to move past these kinds of statements,” she said. “It seems that his statements have set it back.”
Maloney referred to the recent cover story in Time magazine on the human brain, noting the article points out that humans have only been doing complex mathematics for around 3000 years, hardly enough time for the brain to have evolved specialized regions for dealing with mathematical problems and thereby disproving the theory of different specialized math areas in men’s and women’s brains
Secondly, the mapping of the components of the human brain, which began during the last decade, has shown that doing math involves a number of components of the brain working together. “We understand our brains are in some ways mapped differently, and yet we can both end up with the same kind of results,” said Maloney.
The Time article has posed the idea of considering the brain a sex organ. “So that’s it’s hormones, chromosomes, genitalia and brain” said Maloney, regarding what could be considered the key differences between male and female.
She also noted recent studies have shown men and women develop at different rates in different areas, so that educators are now considering gearing the teaching of various math levels or concepts at different ages for each sex.
Maloney further noted that it has been pointed out that on the SATs, girls generally score equally well in verbal and in math, whereas boys tend to score lower in the verbal area. Hence, girls have a choice of two subjects they are “good” in, while boys have only one area they are comfortable in — math.
“If you have a balance in math and verbal ability,” said Maloney, “then you might go to the kind of classes where you feel more comfortable.” Walking into a class where you are the only one of your sex, with classes predominately taught by members of the opposite sex, can make one feel uncomfortable and could account for women, with a choice of two likely routes to pursue, opting for verbal studies, leaving the math-related classes to the men.
There are also international differences involved. One study found girls in Sweden and Iceland outscored their male counterparts in mathematics, due to their success in this area enabling them to “escape” their small, isolated villages.
Maloney concluded, “Instead of thinking about sex as versus gender, we need to think about sex and gender, conceive of this as kind of combined, and to look beyond this for other opportunities and possibilities.”
Davenport noted that her personal work involving children and adolescents has allowed her to observe firsthand how family processes relating to gender affect children’s gender identification.
She related that studies have shown fathers to be more restrictive regarding their sons, which is of concern. “There’s more flexibility for girls,” she said, “which, from a feminist perspective, is great.” Studies involving the treatment of sons and daughters within the same family have been the most revealing.
Of primary impact is the interaction children observe between their parents. “For married couples,” Davenport said, “(it is) how did they divide household tasks? How is power shared within couples? All these things are very subtle contextual things that influence how we begin to define what it means to be a man or it means to be a woman.”
In more egalitarian couples, both husband and wife are found to have higher levels of marital satisfaction. “I always look for the world ‘help’ when couples start talking about how they divide tasks,” said Davenport. “When a husband tells me, ‘I like to help my wife around the house,’ that world implies that it’s still her responsibility and ‘I’m being nice and going above and beyond what I really have to.’ ”
Another important mechanism uncovered by research has been sibling interaction, with children who have siblings of the same sex having different gender development experiences than ones with opposite sex siblings. Whether the sibling of the opposite sex is older or young also has an influence.
A third area of significance is the broad impact of culture, as well as how a person perceives their religion as defining their role. The socio and economic status of the parents also factors in. “More highly educated women, especially,” she said, “tend to be involved in families where there is a more egalitarian perspective and less traditional gender roles for children and for members of the family in general.”
However, she notes, “Trying to identify any single factor of what contributes to gender development is really a waste of time, from looking at this. It’s all these things working together, interacting with each other.”
Lastly, and of major significance, is the individual relationship children have with their parents, said Davenport. This she observed firsthand, having taught 3-year-old preschoolers while working on her master’s. Play centers of different types were set up for the children and Davenport vividly remembers “looking at the different reactions that these kids would get from their parents, depending on what they would do — and just seeing how subtle those things were to reinforce what their children were doing.”
She especially recalls the father who found his preschool son playing in the little kitchen area and demanded to know what he was doing. “I’m cooking dinner,” said the boy. “Where’s you’re wife?” said the father. Davenport and the other teacher later had a heart to heart talk with this parent, explaining that children should not have stereotypical restrictions put on their play.
Parents function in several different roles for children, noted Davenport. One role is as instructor, in which parents set down the rules of what is expected and which children internalize by the age of three. She observed that this is where children learn “Boys don’t cry” or “Ladies should dress this way.”
“We definitely should begin to challenge some of those assumptions of what is right and wrong for men and women,” said Davenport. “I think the last several decades have done a lot to correct that for women, but I think a lot still needs to be done to challenge what those definitions are for men.”
Research has shown another subtle influence. While mothers tend to be more sensitive and open with both boys and girls, parents overall have more verbal interaction with daughters, offering verbal explanations to them, whereas boys tend to be told what to do and not ask questions. Davenport has observed the results in couples’ therapy sessions — a highly expressive woman with a man who does not know how to express his feelings.
Another role of the parents is that of opportunity provider, giving the child the opportunity to play and explore many different areas of their personalities. This includes the type of toys provided, as well as the activities they are encouraged to participate in. Fathers are particularly influential here, when it comes to sons.
“The main point I want to make,” said Davenport, “is that, as a society, we’ve made a lot of progress in opening up lots of avenues for women and trying to broaden the definitions that our culture has about what’s acceptable for women.” She added, “But I think we also need to spend some time now doing the same thing for men, and opening up what’s acceptable and what’s good for men.” |