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Conference quark::human_relations-v1

Title:What's all this fuss about 'sax and violins'?
Notice:Archived V1 - Current conference is QUARK::HUMAN_RELATIONS
Moderator:ELESYS::JASNIEWSKI
Created:Fri May 09 1986
Last Modified:Wed Jun 26 1996
Last Successful Update:Fri Jun 06 1997
Number of topics:1327
Total number of notes:28298

70.0. "Human Conditioning." by YODA::BARANSKI (Every woman has beauty, that has music in her soul...) Wed Sep 17 1986 16:05

This is a spinoff of 66.10-.16 "Ground rules in relationships."

Sure, women are conditioned against their will to be able to fit into a certain
set of social niches, and men are conditioned against their will to be able to
fit into a certain other set of social niches.  This can't be avoided. 

Those individuals who resist such conditioning, fine, let them make their own
niche.  But there has to be some defaults in life, otherwise, if life offers
too many choices, we could spend our entire lives trying to fine a place
to condition ourselves to fit into, and not succeed and be able to be happy
in it untill we're ready to croak.

What do you think would happen if you took a newborn and said, "Ok, we are not
going to do anything which might condition her, untill she is old enough to
decide for herself what she want (to condition herslf for)." 
                 
What would happen would be a social mutation, and like most mutations nonviable
to say the least. 

Jim.
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70.1A.F.F.A.FDCV13::CALCAGNIWed Sep 17 1986 17:0020
     
     A new born, conditioning ?
    I can remember my mother telling me that "She wouldn't be around
    forever and you shouldn't expect your wife to wait on you hand and
    foot"!
     Well she taught me to make do for myself. Cooking, sewing, ironing,
    washing and etc. She died before my second wife came along, but
    my wife is eternally grateful for this. To tell you the truth so
    am I. When I had my own place I never had to face hungry nights
    or dirty clothes and such.
     When my daughter was born I never put her in a female role. I treated
    her as a person right from birth. Even the toys were her choice.
    But it's funny she really cared for the girl items rather then male
    toys. 
     So I feel that maybe, just maybe it's more than conditioning!
    
    What do you think?
    
    Cal
     
70.2It's in the jeans, ah I mean GenesEUCLID::LEVASSEURTell'em Large Marge Sent Ya!Wed Sep 17 1986 18:4262
        This topic had come up in a couple of discussion/support groups
    that I'm active in. My own feeling, from discussions and reading
    is that a lot of behavior is genetic and driven by the brain's
    firmware. Let me explain:
    
    RE: .0-.1
    
        Mom also taught me to cook at an early age since I lived in
    a working household. Must be a good cook, since I my ex-wife put
    on 20 pounds while we were married, she was a lousy cook, so guess
    who the chef was?
        As far as your daughter goes....hhmmmmm! Littel girls love
    dolls and cuddly things, maybe an inborn instinctual nurturing/
    mothing drive being satisfied, I haven's asked many toddlers why
    they gravitate one way or another. My folks told me that from a
    toddler stage I just loved mechanical things, the radio/phono
    console, the tv, the washer, etc. I'de ignore my toys in pref-
    erence to these. Myu parent snever pushed me one way or another
    in choices; I always wanted cars, trucks, train sets, etc......
    the normal male stuff. Our ancient ancestors never had things
    like record players or tonka trucks so some of this may have
    come from seeing dad drive on family outings.....I dunno, follow-
    ing a male role model. From a toddler age ( I was told) I'de
    scream my brains out if dad didn't take me into his workshop when
    he was tinkering with an appliance. I wound up having an extremely
    high mechanical aptitude when tested. Was there something in my
    genetic makeup that said I was destined to have the knack for
    tinkering. My grandfather traced our lineage back ~450 years and
    Our cut of the Levasseur clan have been architects, artists and
    other crafty types. 
    
    Here's another tough one:
    
        Many people thought that homosexuality was caused by environment
    if you wanna follow Freud, close binding mother/distant father,
    lack of male contact. It's a fact that most gay males can look back
    and trace their MOTSS attraction to age 3-6, not so much as a sexual
    attraction but an obsessive interest in males. A lot of the non
    gay men in discussion groups I have been in admitted to an asexual
    attraction to either sex. Since the littel ones do not have a good
    enough understanding of the world at 3-7, underlieing traits, talents
    etc usually don't surface until the right/wrong environmental stimuli
    do a call to those traits.
        My best boyhood friend had an almost identical family envionment
    where the decisions as to what he liked were left to him. I never
    developed a liking for sports but he became rabidly competitive
    in sports without his parents or peers pushing. I developed an
    olympic swimmer's body without ever having to work out. Was there
    something in my genes that said, hey Ray go for the gold. I was
    horrible in phys ed and hte couch told em it was a shame that God
    saw fit to endow me with the body I had. Oh well nuff said!
    
        A lot is human conditioning; parental/peer pressures, but I'll
    end with a little scenario, if 100 newborns were taken from their
    parents and left on an island (assume someone to just feed and 
    do basic baby maintenance stuff) with no direction, I'de bet that
    some would turn out homosexual, some violent, some curious and 
    creative......it all comes down to the giant gene pool, I dunno
    am I making sense?
    
                                              Ray
    
70.4Prereqs to dropping off your luggageATFAB::REDDENseeking the intuitively obviousThu Sep 18 1986 14:3510
    RE: .3    Dragging baggage from past experiences
    
    I think that the baggage (in assumptions about women) that I carry
    is only a reflection of the filters I see women thru.  If I don't
    like something I see, it is probably a projection of a part of me
    that I haven't yet accepted.  I don't have to like it, but when
    I accept it as a part of me, then I can lay aside that filter. 
    Until I understand the part of me that is the same as the part of women
    that I don't like, I don't see how I can lay it aside.
    
70.5Conditioning doesn't always workACOMA::JBADERI value differencesSat Nov 29 1986 17:4539
    My parents certainly tried to raise me in the old traditional female
    subserviant role...but it didn't take. ;-)
    
    I'm the oldest of four children, I have a younger sister and two
    younger brothers. I have always been the adventurous, gregarious
    type of soul. I preferred rough and tumble games that all the boys
    were fond of and was never too interested in doll houses or tea
    party games.
    
    As the eldest *female* child, I had the biggest hunk of household
    chores. My brothers did not do housework, except for emptying the
    trash and picking up their own room. I was responsible for the dishes,
    laundry, dusting, sweeping, mopping, etc. My sister was not a very
    big help here, she was allergic to everything under the sun, including
    the sun, so she usually remained sheltered in her spotlessly clean
    room while the heavy stuff went on elsewhere in our home.
    
    As the boys grew older, yard work became their responsibility. Pull
    them weeds fellas, that's *man's* work. It's probably fairly obvious
    that I really resented the entire set-up, but that was back in the
    50's and it sure is different today. 
    
    All the hours I used to spend with my little brothers building roads
    and small cities in the dirt to run tonka trucks down was attributed
    to my being a responsible older sister entertaining her brothers.
    Actually, it was probably more fun for me than it was for them.
    
    I have three daughters and one son. I have attempted to direct each
    of them to make their own choices, but I also made sure that each
    one of them knows how to do laundry, cook meals, hoe a garden, change
    a flat tire, shop sensibly, and to take responsibility for their
    own actions.
    
    I believe somethings may be inborn and attributed to genes, but
    some ideas and attitudes are learned processes. Some women are terrific
    in traditional male fields and some men are terrific in traditional
    female fields. And everyone should do what is best for themselves,
    not as they think society dictates.
                                          -sunny-