Gender Predispositions and Nurture vs. Nature

There are things we would like to believe, and then there is nature, which often does not play along with our sociological wishes. We may not want there to be biological differences between the genders that predispose us to certain types of behaviors, but there are. And that’s OK.

Little boys are not more aggressive, for example, because aggression is modeled and nurtured, they are more aggressive because of increased levels of testosterone (though this is debated) and other neurological factors. But how those instinctive behaviors manifest themselves is hugely determined by how we are socialized.

Our biological drives and predispositions may be reinforced, they may be weakened, they may be eliminated or even reversed by the human factor, but we absolutely do not start out as a carte blanche.

So which is the prime impetus of human behavior, nature or nurture? Research seems to point to the fact that there is no clear leader -- they are both strong factors that cannot be cleanly divided.

But there are still people who absolve themselves (or others) of deplorable behavior, citing biology: "What do you expect, he's a guy!?" And there are still people that are made pariahs because they have desires that are not socially acceptable in their particular group, such as when religious intolerance constantly beats down (or up) a gay person for not following an artificial social "norm" that is every bit as natural as heterosexuality.

A person can't change the color of his or her skin through the power of thought, but the power of thought can change the meaning of what skin color says about a person. (Which should be, in my opinion, "Nothing.")