http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/12979743...week/?GT1=8199
I don't care about sports, but the commentary made here is one I've often thought about myself.
On the one hand, this does show that one's sex is meaningless to how one acts independent of socially ascribed gender roles.
On the other hand, it shows that by turning women masculine we may be killing all the decency in the world.
Though I'd point out that a lot of the "girls gone wild" behavior is particular to females and part of gender ascription. No matter how masculine these girls appear, it seems they have still accepted themselves as living sex toys.
It seems to me that the modern young "feminist", as seen in female pop singers, talking models, and some of these female athletes is the embodiment of a person with a big ego but no self esteem. It seems to me al this wrongly labeled self-esteem crap pushed in schools is partially to blame for that mentality as it exists in boys and girls.

I view gender and sex equality as positive. I suppose what I take issue with is more the hedonistic and self-centered direction that both genders fall into. To blame for this partially, I believe, is the tradition of most cultures of valuing "masculine" traits over "feminine" ones. The result: selfishness, aggression, disregard of feelings, and other side effects of the go-get-em mentality are becoming universal. But I suppose this is balanced out by the surge of these metrosexuals.
Female athletes and metrosexuals just seem to point out to us how stupid gender roles really are when not balanced. Real Men TM and Real Women TM really are bizarre creatures and so are their new reversal counterparts.
I suppose I agree with many of the IMO wiser liberal feminists of the past who envisioned more balanced individuals.
As long as people continue to coexist in couples though , I guess we can survive with the polarized gender roles, regardless of which sexes adopt them. I guess at least now there is freedom to pick a gender.
I'm glad that both my fiancee and I are fairly well balanced- or at least we have complementary mixtures of the genders to the point where we form a balanced couple.
I'm glad to see that people can pick and choose the traits that fit their goals and personalities. But this story makes it look to me like groupthink still dominates how people are engendered and people still seem to be magnetized to the poles.

The last barrier to human freedom will be found in our minds.

__________________
"Man lives in the sunlit world of that which he believes to be reality. But unseen by most is an underworld, a place that is just as real... but not as brightly lit... A DARK SIDE!"
-opening from Tales From the Darkside

it's a matter of socialization to ASSUME men are more aggressive than women. I disagree. i'm just as aggressive as any man i've ever worked with, and when I played soccer, was one of the most aggressive players on the field.

HUMANS are primates. Both male and female primates, when given the opportunity, will show aggression.

Women are not inherently more civilized than men. We are not inherently less aggressive. We are not inherently better behaved than men. We're just different genders, not a different species.

Your ideas about women are rooted in victorianism, not in any real cognitive understanding of genetic gender differences. When you describe what you type as male or female characteristics, but they are HUMAN tendencies. Women are not inherently more maternal/empathetic/supportive. Men are not inherently more aggressive. Some humans are extremely aggressive, some are more maternal. But to characterize them as male/female traits is the opposite of feminism.

Catz

__________________
I'll get nicer when you get smarter.

I agree.
The trouble is that our society demeans what we call "feminine" properties and encourages "masculine" qualities and now this is true for both men and women.
That's why I'm ambivalent.
It's good to see equal opportunity for women.
It's bad that we may be facing the death of compassion and civility since these things have been made so undesirable by years of patriarchy.

For more troubling stuff, look at metrosexuals. They pick up certain "feminine" traits, namely fashion sense and all the shallow crap assoiciated with women. But aside from that, they remain selfish and without compassion. And what are the things "masculine" women tend to drop? Not worrying about shoes and makeup. Instead they drop compassion and nurturing.
And then the aggressive women are attracted to... aggressive men.

Hopefully people I know are exceptions rather than the rule. But to me this looks like the death of decency. Feminists originally wanted not only for women to be respected as equals but for the things they traditionally did for society to be recognized as important.
It appears to me that our society is just jumping from about 50% @$$hole to almost 100% @$$hole.
But I could just be letting all the @$$holes I come across on a regular basis get to me.

__________________
"Man lives in the sunlit world of that which he believes to be reality. But unseen by most is an underworld, a place that is just as real... but not as brightly lit... A DARK SIDE!"
-opening from Tales From the Darkside

I'm not really troubled by the metrosexuals, nor do I think that decency and civility are necessarily the realm of women.

Most of my mentors and role models have been men, surprisingly enough. They've nurtured my ambitions, helped me through, given me support, and been terrific steadfast friends.

I just don't see it. I guess I'm just not currently overwhelmed by (*)(*)(*)(*)(*)(*)(*)s. Are there a lot of (*)(*)(*)(*)(*)(*)(*)s out there? Sure. But there are far more kind and decent people, of both genders.

__________________
I'll get nicer when you get smarter.

Hopefully you're right.
Perhaps if society lingers too close to the "masculine" traits and loses sight of nurturing and kindness, there will be a reaction toward a more kindly society.
What I worry about is that it is the tendency of the "masculine" mentality to destroy the competition rather than seeking balance with it.
The trouble I have does not stem from the equality we are seeing. It stems from the legacy of the ascribed gender roles. Until we completely reject this dichotomy, I'll worry.

__________________
"Man lives in the sunlit world of that which he believes to be reality. But unseen by most is an underworld, a place that is just as real... but not as brightly lit... A DARK SIDE!"
-opening from Tales From the Darkside

Does that make him less manly? funny, I thought it made him more manly.

__________________
I'll get nicer when you get smarter.

Ok, I'll admit before going any further that I am a man and not a feminist, and that my post here is not meant to be inflammatory, but merely attempting civilized debate.

I'd just like to address the ideas some of you have put forward about the roles of gender and personality.

1) You frequently refer to competition very negatively, while forgetting that competition is at the very heart of life's existence in all forms. Were it not for competition we would still be small replicating RNA strands on the bottom of a primordial ocean. Competition has defined our species and our entire biosphere and will continue to define our species whether or not it is "acceptable" human behavior.

2) Competitiveness is a traight that is found in males more than females in just about every (and possibly absolutely every) species of mammal, including those who can certainly not be said to have a "society." There are a number of reasons for this, but in mammals, the answer is obvious. Females need to be mothers, but after initial conception, a male can die defending his offspring and those offspring will still have a very good chance of being raised to adulthood and carrying on his line. If the mother were to die, then the babies will starve. It is not as pronounced a difference in non-mammals because they lay eggs, and fathers are just as capable as mothers at feeding the children. In some of the most extreme cases, spider males allow themselves to be devoured after mating to give females a bit of extra nutrition to aid here during the rearing process. If you accept the idea of darwinism, and also the existence of secondary sex characteristics, then you must also admit the logic of this reasoning. The males are competitive because that competition can still aid the offspring after mating, in that his competitiveness and beligerence will protect the mother and her young.

You will doubtlessly argue against this by saying that humans should be above base instict, and that enlightened minds can shrug off urges/compulsions. I disagree with this thought because first and foremost, the consciousness unique to humans (and possibly other primates) builds on the instinct system and learning systems possible without a consciousness, rather than undermining them. We do not ponder whether it is right to swallow food, or have children, because these beliefs are present in the very hard-wiring of our being.

So, to wrap up that wall of text, differing gender roles are necessary and very impractical to reverse.

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Those are my principles. If you don't like them I have others.
Groucho Marx

To get at point one:
I don't think competition is negative, but that it must be balanced with at least some cooperation. That is what the gender roles accomplished, despite all the other side effects they've stuck us with. My concern is that with the diminishing of gender roles, something I generally think is good, the balance will fall apart. Chances are I'm just getting paranoid over nothing. Humans have an uncanny knack for restoring what's missing in society.

For the others:
I respectfully disagree, though I think this is one of those arguments that will go on until the end of time.
Swallowing and other vital functions are necessary to the survival of an individual organism and not anywhere near the same level. You want something closer: How do people know how to get food or what to eat without being taught? Culture doesn't take the place of basic vital functions- but it and intellect do replace instinct on the secondary level and replace immutable environment-specific behaviors with open, adaptable behaviors that transcend place, time, circumstances, and evolutionary programming for all but the most basic urges and functions.
Gender roles are not necessary to the survival of the individual creature, but were tools for the survival of the tribal unit and thus adaptations of behavior. Over time, statistically, through evolution certain hormones and urges may have become more common in one gender or the other. Predominantly we'd see the basics of men being more competitive, primarily due to their specialization in protecting females, children, and the weak. Females in general were more compassionate toward children for other obvious reasons.
But the big things now are change in circumstances, change in knowledge, and different evolutionary traits taking precedence. The fact that exceptions exist within individual people means that gender roles are partially inefficient and in a modern society it is better to allow people to follow paths of their own interest and traits. If a man is more compassionate, why should he not be? If a woman is intelligent and has a competitive spirit, why should she not use it?
Despite all the talk of gender roles as some physical reality, the mere fact that we need to ascribe them to make them universal means that they are really more of a form of protectionism in the free market of human society, an inefficiency. If it comes natural fine.
The only way to keep it all straight is to assume equality. It's pretty assinine to consider a male to be a better engineer when there is a woman standing there that is objectively better and foolish to think of a woman as a better mother when a man standing there is doing a great job and she is cold.
To accept individualism on any level, it seems to me necessary to reject any ascribed roles.

__________________
"Man lives in the sunlit world of that which he believes to be reality. But unseen by most is an underworld, a place that is just as real... but not as brightly lit... A DARK SIDE!"
-opening from Tales From the Darkside