Essay on "Debating and Defending Issues"

Essay 12 pages (4149 words) Sources: 12

[EXCERPT] . . . .

Similarly, men have also been enabled to take on an expanded role in terms of nurturing and general parenting that they could not in the past. Therefore, the changes to modern gender differences show that past gender differences were only an outcome of expectations of the society on the sexes (Dickens, 2014).

There is little scientific proof supporting the argument that gender differences are due to biological differences between men and women. Males and females are physically and genetically similar except for very small biological differences primarily for the purpose of reproduction. Actually, an analysis of forty six research studies on differences in gender differences revealed that 78% of the areas that were being investigated did not reveal any huge differences between women and men. Thus apart from the small biological differences linked to "mate selection" and reproduction (Davies & Shackelford, 2006), women and men are capable of carrying out the same tasks and playing the same roles in society. Thus, the differences between a woman's role and a man's role in society are only so because of societal norms and rules that are learned through socialization or modeling (Ward, 2003).

According to author Ward (2003), gender differences are due to social programming with family units. The concept of identification by Freud is one of the most important theories that explain the social origins of gender differences (Bussey & Bandura, 1999). As child starts to identify with a parent of the same gender, he or she also learns about the way of thinking and the actions of that parent. The child then gradually begins to assume the role played by the parent that it identifies with. Therefore gender differences can be taught early within a family unit as both parents and children alike are not aware on the societal origins of gender differences. Social learning continues later in the child's life through adolescence when sex characteristics start to develop. During this period, institutionalized gender roles are further influenced and reinforced by the society (Bussey & Bandura, 1999).

Even though these types of cognitive programming on gender differences are not directly taught to adolescents, they are assimilated by them through a combination of peer pressure, modeling and social learning (Smith & Leaper, 2006). Images and motions pictures linked to gender roles in mass and news media also influence they way in which people perceive gender differences and how they view themselves as either female or male (Smith & Leaper, 2006).

On the other hand, supporters of biological origins of gender differences argue that sexual orientation is fundamentally biological. This argument means that gender or rather sex in this case is biologically determined and cannot in any way be influenced by the environment. One of the evidences put forward by the proponents of biology as the origins of gender differences is the fact that the male brain is biologically different from that of the female. Likewise, it has also been argued that the brain of a homosexual male also has slight differences (structurally) from that of the heterosexual male (Rice & Gavrilets, 2012).

However, it is my argument that sexual orientation is not exactly the same thing as gender differences. According to authors Kiecolt and Acock (1988) gender roles are a set of behaviors and actions that are associated with a specific gender. One's gender differences may or may not be related to the individual's sexual orientation and in some cases the differences are against what is expected of the sexual orientation as taught by the society.

Recent changes in gender differences have been due to changes in the structures of family units (Kiecolt & Acock, 1988). Because of situations such as those that force children to live in single parent families, children in today's society cannot really fit Freud's classical parent identification theory. According to a study done by Kiecolt and Acock, individuals who were raised in single parent homes developed different mentalities with regards to the conventional gender differences compared to the individuals who were raised in traditional family units. This study reveals that people raised by single mothers are more likely to believe in the expansion of women's power in society and also their political roles and are usually less concerned with sticking to traditional female and male gender differences. This shows that in non-traditional family units, the establishment and institutionalization of conventional gender differences is weaker than in traditional family units (Dickens, 2014).

Overall, gender differences are basically sociological outcomes that are influenced and propagated by societal units. Furthermore, technological changes and alterations of the family structure have changed modern gender roles and expanded the participation of women in the public space. Thus, this proves that gender differences originated from societal conditioning and not biological origins (Dickens, 2014).

Part 3

Violence is a phenomenon that has always been with us although its meaning and presence is different in different times and different places. There have been heated debates about violence. Historians have significantly contributed to the discussion and added to our understanding of the fluctuations in this phenomenon (Wood, 2011). The history of violence has moved somewhat from social history towards cultural history in the last few decades (Wood, 2006); whereby discussions of methodology do not touch on biological issues, except only to downplay them (Green, 2007).

However, associated disciplines have seen several publications on the issue of evolutionary theory notably law, sociology, criminology, political science and public policy. According to author Storey (2013), culture is the way in which we, humans, live in nature. Much of the focus on evolutionary psychology from historians has concentrated on violence. The most notable effort has been David T. Courtwright's work, the study of violence in America, which took into account social factors in terms of evolutionary and biological evidence with regards to male aggression (Courtwright, 1996).

Violence among people is against so many morals and principles that humans supposedly hold dear, it sustains despite the many attempts to reduce or eliminate it. Many experts who have studied the matter, be them, philosophers, psychiatrists, criminologists, psychiatrists or psychologists, and etc., have argued that the environment in which an individual is raised as a child is strongly linked to his or her predisposition to violence later in life (child neglect, abuse, witnessing violence regularly and so on) (Attempting to explain violence, n.d). While I agree with the studies, statistics and experiences of the majority, I feel that it is inaccurate to completely believe in the idea that child development is the root cause of violent acts later is life. Violence has its roots in biology, genetics and environment.

Childhood is one of the most significant formative periods of one's life. It is the time when values and habits are created and communication initiated. So to argue that violence has its roots in childhood development is only to point to the environmental stimuli to violence. It is crucial to work hard to provide safer and less violent childhood for our progeny; however it is also important to note that violence is systemic in human biology and genetics and will necessitate changing biology and genetics, besides the environment (Attempting to explain violence, n.d). It is my opinion that violence is brought about by the following three stimuli: biology, genes and the environment.

A notable challenge in living beings is communication, which is the relaying of ideas. Given that as humans we do not reproduce by fission, in other words we require the mating of males and females, thus we must be interdependent upon other people to enable procreation. To facilitate this interdependence, there is a need for us to relay emotions, ideas, concepts and etc. to other people since if we do not this we would likely not have had the interactions necessary to evolve to the stage we are now. As humans there is a need for us to depend on each other for our continued survival (Attempting to explain violence, n.d).

Ideas or concepts are created from external stimuli which is transmitted to the nerve centre (within a range of sensory organs) and converted to chemical and electrical messages. These signals are then relayed to the brain which in turn adds its own input (deduced future, the present or past) to this input using several complex pathways to form a sort of biological mechanism that has the ability to decide on what to do through the chemistry or physics of neurons, thus creating a brain activity. Stated simply this chain of events is called the "cone of perception" (Attempting to explain violence, n.d).

The universe we live in is made of billions of protons, electrons and neutrons. Of these only a small portion can be viewed or perceived through the human mind. Thus this means that we as humans are a very small subset of the universe we know of, both in terms of intellectual capacity as well as matter. The cone of perception is a descriptor of the… READ MORE

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