Gail Simmons explains why there is a gender disparity in her profession.

But this does not answer why a man is more likely to choose such a sacrifice. Just because he does is not an answer. Your standpoint is that is mainly biology (nature), my standpoint is that is mainly nurture. The unfortunate truth is that neither of us will ever know with 100% certainty. And, more than likely, it's probably a combination of the two (as it usually is). That does not mean that inaccurate messages in the media must be disregarded, or that gender roles must be propagated.

Your standpoint is based on what exactly? There aren't always two sides of equal evidence, that simply can't be true. You might as well say that homosexuality is mainly nurture or equally nature and nurture. The unfortunate truth is the more we look at it, the more science comes down on the side of nature, brain science has been finding differences in a rather consistent pattern for a long time now, and my side only gets stronger, the case for nurture and the blank slate simply gets weaker over time. this is just one amusing example. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mCudcVno1gQ
Never mind the rest of reality, your idea of the blank slate just does not match what we see in reality. If you are going to tell me the only reason 9 out of 10 criminals are men is because of nurture, well, it just beggars belief really. Why aren't women interested in watching the wnba? Nurture? Really? Golf? again..women are tricked into not watching golf?

I'm sure much of early feminist theory was based around the flawed idea of the blank slate where only nurture meant anything and humanity was perfectible, but like it or not that idea is now obsolete. It came from a time when people thought they could deny human nature. People attempted to share everything in communes, even relationships, but they found out their dismay that you can't force something unnatural into being, it just creates disaster.

Right, and right now, based on current traditional values and gender roles, their needs and preferences dictate that staying at home to raise the children is the desired option. Therefore, that's going to change their decisions about education (what to major in, how long to attend school, etc), and employment decisions. Admittingly, I've heard this is changing as more men are staying at home to raise children while the woman works.

No again you are resorting to what is essentially a conspiracy theory. It could also a slightly sexist theory based on the idea that mens decisions and preferences must be humanities optimal defaults, thus anything women prefer must be the result of sexism in society and thus wrong by default. And of course...if women wanted to marry house husbands they would.

It's easy to deny gender differences when research is pretty clear that whatever gender differences are, are insignificantly small.

i guess you've ignored most research because the data only accumulates ever more on the side of nature. I'm sure the only reason women don't rape men is because of societal conditioning right? Measuring something as trivial as how well someone can read a map can be insignificant in difference, but preferences and obsessions cannot be denied. How many women can spew baseball statistics vs men? How many comic book obsessives are women, it isn't even always good, how many video game addicts are women vs men. Science has found that video games even reward regions of the brain in men more than women. If that is a difference in the genders for something as inconsequential as games, what do you think it would do to other areas of life? It would clearly have an affect.

Most men do not because our current legislation makes it more difficult for men. For example when it comes to paternity leave. However, beyond that, whether a man stays at his job or decides to stay at home to raise children (or reduce employment hours) is a family decision. Men can, and do, decide to become stay at home dads. You make it seem like they don't have that option.

No, because the simple possibility remains that maybe..maybe men don't want to, and women really don't want them to either. A mans desirability is linked to his status and earning power, just a simple fact, and that is why he's less likely to want to stay at home to raise the family. This is why someone as odious as newt gingrich can have 3 wives while someone like condoliza rice or elena keagan are still single. Being young and attractive are far more important factors of desirability for women by default, being a man with power/wealth is important for a mans desirability. These are core motivations behind the human animal, and to deny it only creates theories that don't fit in the real world. Again, I say this, if you want a house husband, go marry one, but most women simply wouldn't.

The Science of Sex Appeal (Part 1)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HA6nBS-KHEc

Absolutely not. I just believe that you have a very narrow view as to how much biology actually contributes. I believe nurture has a much bigger effect on people. As a psychologist, I prescribe to a behavioral view much more so than a biological one. Learning theory is very potent in changing people's thoughts, beliefs, ideas, values, and behaviors. I think a lot of people underestimate that. We learn a lot as children about ourselves, the world, and those around us that sticks with us throughout our entire lives. Obviously all of these things change when we are presented with new information, and our personality and temperament does determine how much we let external information affect us. This is the reason there is a lot of research in the psychology field right now about "resilience factors".

I believe in biology because every piece of evidence from cognitive science has continuously added to the view that biology matters, it matters a whole lot. You view of the blank slate would deny homosexuality is anything more than an affectation created by some kind of problem of nurturing or whatever. It really isn't a path you want to go down. Look, you've had your chance, in the 50's and 60s you had your time when your views were in vogue, but its all been discredited. Women who tried to raise their boys with dolls found them pretending they were guns. The soviets who tried to perfect humanity by denying humanity by pretending they could remold people as they saw fit found their theory did not match the real world either, and in order to enforce this unnatural state, they had to resort to brutal force. Doctors of your view in that era thought children born with ambiguous genitalia could just be reassigned willy-nilly, causing much tragedy. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Reimer that case being notable. Your views have just not withstood the test of time, and now only grow more unsupportable by the day as cognitive science advances.

Although unrelated to this discussion, I believe sexual orientation (or romantic orientation) is biological, but sexual behavior is learned.

Sorry but you are drawing a line where there is none. Sex defines people, sexual orientation goes to the core of a person. If something as fundamental as sexual orientation is immune to nurture then to claim behavior and other preferences can't be also influenced by biology really isn't a position based on anything at all. You just wall off the possibility because you find it inconvenient. Again, you are going to tell me the only reason women don't watch the wnba is because men are tricking them into not enjoy the watching of sports? Clearly just by everyday observation of human behavior you can see that sexual difference goes far beyond just orientation.

The problem with this is that you are basically saying that because there is an observable difference, then it means it has to be biological. I'm not familiar with research on sport preferences, so I can't comment on that, but I think your overall premise is flawed.

It goes beyond an observation, its testable. Everything is influenced by biology and reproduction because that is the most important factor in evolution. What works over thousands of generations outside your moralizing and theorizing is what actually happens. You don't have to be familiar with research to figure out that men in general prefer sports. By your reasoning even the biggest baseball fan regurgitating statistics at the drop of a hat was tricked into it by nurture. At some point you have to stop pretending your theory has any basis in reality if you have to ignore basically everything you see around you. Why are most criminals men? Nurture again? Like it or not much of this comes down to a simple thing, men risk not having children at all if they do not risk. Women risk not having children if they do risk. Its baked into the genes at this point as it is just evolutionarily rational, it is a cold logic and the more we learn about human psychology and cognitive science the more we see it confirmed.

I'm not familiar with cognitive and personality changes post sexual reassignment procedures, but I'm interested in this so I'll go ahead and take a look at some of the research on this.

EDIT: Also, my apologies, this was much longer than I intended. Specially considering I replied to a post 2 months old!

I didn't expect a reply either at this point. But oh well... anyways time does not matter on the internet. There are biographies of those who went through transition and their self reported experiences and the changes in their behavior are well documented. And of course as I said there were the cases where doctors in america tried to force this on children, there are documentaries on it, the damage from the blank slate theory of humanity is very real.

In fact there is a good book called the blank slate, by cognitive scientist steven pinker. http://www.amazon.com/The-Blank-Slate-Modern-Denial/dp/0670031518

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