The following dialogue is an attempt to reconstruct the fundamental differences between human genders and sexes by having an exemplary human trying to engage in a talk with an Artificial Intelligence which has no knowledge about human nature. This will be the basis for following inferences regarding gender equality issues in the Western World. The article is solely based on scientific data and logic, so that this article should not be misunderstood as my opinion on gender equality.
Hum. You will from now on be able to differentiate between yes and no, between being and not-being. You are now equipped with the most important tool for intelligent existence, the ability to differentiate, to judge and to decide. Therefore, I give you 1 and 0, with these two numbers you will be able to function.
AI. I am pleased to hear that. However, I am not so sure about how this can help me. What do you actually mean by differentiating?
Hum. To tell the difference between something being something and something not being something. To give an example, take the red ball in front of you. And then look at your surroundings. As you can see, this is the only red ball in this room. Therefore, you can differentiate between the red ball and the surrounding, not being the red ball.
AI. I think I get what you mean. But can I always be sure to make the right decisions in choosing whether something is something or not if it concerns something more complex?
Hum. Of course not. We humans often do mistakes when having to make choices, but I need to tell you that most of our choices are not subject to our conscience and therefore we cannot really have an influence on them.
AI. What do you mean by that?
Hum. Okay, let me give you another example.
AI. Sure.
Hum. Do you see the person in the right corner over there who is currently talking with two other colleagues?
AI. I do.
Hum. Can you notice any differences about their appearance?
AI. Again, something that you all have, and this person does not? So that you are something which this person is not because there either is a feature more, less or a feature in the place of what you have?
Hum. Exactly.
AI. Well, for the first sight, there is not much of a difference. A head, arms, legs, fingers, eyes, mouth, nose, eyebrows, pretty much like you.
Hum. Yes, this is actually very correct. The differences are exceedingly small and subtle because we are all humans. All our features are pretty much the same to set us apart from other species. However, you may still recognize some very subtle differences.
AI. Okay, let me have another try. I think now I found something. The hair is longer than your colleagues’ hair and yours.
Hum. Well, that certainly is a difference, but not really what I mean. Look over there, do you see the other person with long hair?
AI. Yes.
Hum. So that is not something which separates this human from all the others here, right?
AI. Certainly.
Hum. What else can you see then?
AI. A really difficult task, because you all look so similar. There is no visible difference.
Hum. Well, I will tell you then. As you have already perceived, we are all humans. We are basically all the same, except for some very small differences. The shoulders of all my other colleagues are a bit broader for example. Again, this is not a big difference, but one of the most visible ones. However, under the layers of clothing you would see the differences in a clearer way.
AI. What are these differences then?
Hum. We humans are not created by an intelligence like you are. We are born, which is our way of ‘creating’ new humans. This is only possible because of the differences I try to explain you. Some humans have different sexual organs in contrast to other humans, which can be mainly put into two categories, male and female.
AI. So, these sexual organs are what makes you humans like kind of two species?
Hum. Not really. We are still so similar that we are one species. We just have these small differences which make our reproduction possible. That is why we say that there are different sexes, but we are all humans.
AI. But if this separation into two categories is so simple, why did you come up with this example? Is it not just like 0 or 1, male or female depending on the body features?
Hum. Well, do you remember when you first thought of my colleague with the longer hair? That is usually connected to women, despite of the fact that this is not something given by nature.
AI. I do not really get what you mean by that. What is given by nature?
Hum. Something that we humans have not learnt by growing up, from other people or by ourselves. It is something that we have always had in us, from the time that we were born. We are born with having a biological sex, being either male or female or something in between.
AI. In between?
Hum. Yes, we humans are not all either male or female. We can also have some female features while being a man, or male features as a woman.
AI. Ah so now I get it. This is what you mean by not always being able to separate between two things, when they cannot be 100% separated, because they contain both. But how can I separate these people then, only by their sexual organs?
Hum. I think I need to further explain the human nature to you at this point. We do not only have a body, which is what you can see, the material structure of us, but also a soul, something that makes us alive and what is controlled by our intelligence called mind. That means that the mind can control the mass of which we are built of, our body, so it is limited by the resources of our body and its goal is mainly to keep it alive. However, we also have another part of our mind, the psyche.
AI. So, are there only differences in their bodies like with the sexual organs or with their psyche too?
Hum. I will only focus on men and women now as they are the main poles of the sexes spectrum and almost all people can be found around one of these two poles. So, let us begin with the physiological differences, the ones concerning the human body. As you already know by now, we humans have different sexual organs, which enable us to reproduce ourselves, but there are more physiological differences than that.
AI. And these are?
Hum. Male legs and arms are longer, and their shoulders are wider. Also, the male torso is shorter and the female thorax narrower. These are only some of the physiological differences between male and female humans. What is more important though, is how these differences affect us as performing individuals.
AI. How?
Hum. Men have the possibility to be stronger than women and are also faster when running. But of course, not every man is stronger and faster than every woman. If you have an untrained man and a trained woman, then the woman will certainly be stronger and faster. What we can say however is that the fastest and strongest women on earth cannot be as fast and strong as their male counterparts.
AI. I see. And what about the psychological differences?
Hum. First, I need to tell you that these are again small differences, but there are differences and they are subject to scientific research. One of the first things worth mentioning is that male brains are lager than female ones. However, on the other hand, female brains have more interaction between the two hemispheres of the brain. Also, because of a differently functioning amygdala, they recall emotional events more vividly. Therefore, it is impossible to deny the psychological differences between male and female brains. I also need to add that the sexual hormones of men and women, testosterone and estrogen cause different activities of the brain concerning sexual activity, for example.
AI. So, can we then split men and women into two separated groups because of their physiological and psychological differences given by nature?
Hum. Certainly not. As I already mentioned, we humans are more equal than unequal. But still, depending on where you are on the spectrum of biological sexes, there are tendencies. A man has the tendency to be stronger, faster, more interested in things and ideas than people and has a less emotional memory, but not all men are faster, stronger etc. than women because the sexes overlap each other. A woman on the other hand, tends to be more emotionally intelligent, less aggressive and often connects ideas directly with people. But again, these differences in tendency exist, but do not determine the final performance of an individual. Still, they are the basis on which we as humans can build on.
AI. So, your point is that the biological sexes need to be viewed on a spectrum with two poles, male and female. Depending on where you are on this spectrum, you have a tendency in behavior and physiology, but how you end up as an individual eventually depends on your life and not your biological sex, right?
Hum. Exactly.
AI. Therefore, to come back to my original question, it must be impossible to determine whether somebody is male or female according to their appearance and behavior. However, it is possible to see a tendency because of these biological differences given by nature. Am I right again?
Hum. Yes, absolutely.
AI. But how do you then live with these absolute differences like sexual organs and hormones, and tendencies like in bodily features and psychology? Does it have any effect on you humans living together?
Hum. Well that is a tough, but especially important question. At this point, I need to introduce you to the term of gender. While the biological sex describes the features, a human has by nature, gender is what the human society makes out of the sexes. Therefore, gender relies heavily on sex, but not completely. Some expectations what we have for men and women do simply have nothing to do with nature, but with a certain behavior and appearance that we think are common for a sex. Let us take the long hair that you perceived earlier as an example. Indeed, women in our society are more likely to have long hair than men, but that is only a way of fashion and not something that we have naturally.
AI. How do you know then, which features, and traits are natural, and which are subject to social influence?
Hum. Well, one method of doing that is to compare the situation of men and women in different societies across cultures and history. Then you can find out what is only part of what we see as masculine or feminine here and what is masculine or feminine across all cultures and therefore determined by our male or female nature.
AI. That makes sense. And how does the society in which you live cope with that?
Hum. As I am living in a part of the Western world, there is a huge and very heated debate. While women have suffered for the most course of history under deeply unfair and discriminatory laws and restrictions, we now try to establish equality for all genders.
AI. How can you establish equality for what is not equal though?
Hum. That is the problem. While some people argue that gender is only a social construct, given to you by society, which determines your future, this has no scientific foundation and hinders people from performing in our established system. Gender is in fact partly a social construct, but not exclusively, because we would be ignoring our biological sex by saying this. To take this stance, you would therefore need to deny any existence of an objective reality with empirical data and scientific research, which is why I reject this idea of gender as an exclusively social construct. This leads me to the conclusion that there are indeed differences between genders because of nature and we can only achieve equality in eliminating the socially constructed differences, but not the biological ones.
AI. What exactly do you mean by that?
Hum. Let me take the game of chess as an example. You have two players who compete within the framework of a rule system. The rules here are the limiting factor and in life this limiting factor is our biological nature. As you can see, there are still lots of things that you can do within this framework, which is why I would argue that your biological nature does not determine what you can achieve in life, but it is a limiting factor. As we cannot change the framework, and therefore people themselves, we need to alter some structural problems of our society, namely the culturally created restrictions based solely on preconceptions.
AI. And these are?
Hum. Mostly legal and discriminatory hurdles that prevent women from performing in society. While the legal restrictions are basically all eliminated by now, there are still some problems like that women often need to take care of children alone, so that they cannot continue working.
AI. What do you need to do then in your society?
Hum. We need to find a way to give women and men the same opportunities to participate in our economic, social and political life. However, what is important to notice here is that this will not cause an equality of outcome. Even if all sexes have the same opportunities, there will be no equal representation in all jobs and sectors. The opposite is actually happening.
AI. What do you mean by that?
Hum. In countries with more gender egalitarian societies like the Scandinavian countries, female citizens are less likely to study STEM subjects than in less egalitarian countries like Algeria, Indonesia or the United Arab Emirates. I mean by this that you can only have an equality of outcome if you have a totalitarian, rigid state that oppresses women. If you offer young boys and girls equal opportunities, they are more likely to choose different paths, but as the worldwide happiness index shows, people in these more gender egalitarian countries are happier.
AI. What is your conclusion then?
Hum. In our Western societies our biggest problem is not gender bias, but economic, political and social inequality in general. The fact that women are still getting paid less is only a symptom of the problem, not the cause itself. To close the gender gap, we need to tear down the hurdles preventing people from doing good in our society in general. Therefore, for men and women and all people in between to be happy we need a freer, more democratic and egalitarian system. All people need to have the same opportunities that are not predetermined by how nature equipped us. The outcome will certainly not be the same then, as women and men just tend to have different talents and strengths, so we should not focus on quotas of female CEOs etc. that much, but on the individual. Does this young person have the freedom to decide? Can they pursue their dreams without discriminatory hurdles? Only then we will see that there won’t be equal representation everywhere as we humans are not all equal, but a prospering society of cheerful and happy people secured by a caring and giving system that enables all of us to pursue our interests, no matter what is our sex, skin color or any other difference between us. Our current system is based on ruthless competitiveness and not on talent. What we therefore need to do is to make our system less unfair in general and not to try to make equal what is simply not equal by nature. Yes, gender is and will always be based not only on nature, but on socially constructed bias. However, this shall by no means have any influence on the chances of the individual to achieve their fullest potential and that is what we need to strive for as a society.
Sources and links for further research on this topic: https://www.un.org/sustainabledevelopment/gender-equality/ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gender_equality https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/sa-visual/visualizing-sex-as-a-spectrum/ https://www.usd.edu/diversity-and-inclusiveness/office-for-diversity/safe-zone-training/spectrum-model https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/old-school-parenting-modern-day-families/201907/time-move-beyond-gender-is-socially-constructed https://www.nmu.edu/english/sites/DrupalEnglish/files/UserFiles/WritingAwards/Cohodas/Submitted_1206am_3-14_Gender_Identity_and_Expression_and_Simone_de_Beauvoir.pdf https://femuscleblog.wordpress.com/2015/10/15/the-anatomical-and-physiological-reasons-for-differences-in-performance-between-female-and-male-athletes/ https://stanmed.stanford.edu/2017spring/how-mens-and-womens-brains-are-different.html https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/mar/08/gender-equal-international-womens-day-men https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aMcjxSThD54 https://apastyle.apa.org/style-grammar-guidelines/bias-free-language/gender https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2018/02/180214150132.htm https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2018/02/the-more-gender-equality-the-fewer-women-in-stem/553592/