Nature Vs Nurture Essay, Research Paper

Nature vs Nurture It wasn?t until 1920 that women finally got the right to vote. From the beginning of time men and women were looked at as totallydifferent creatures. There are differences between men and womenthat can not be explained. The only logical explanation for thesedifferences is that men and women are biologically different. I observed an Elmira College men?s and women?s basketballgame in hopes of finding some differences in gender roles. Myobservations varied. Many girls sat together in groups and many guyswere attending the game with a larger group of girls. Only a few guysin the crowd decided socializing was more important than what wason the court, as almost every male dedicated his undivided attentionto the game. The aggression level among the male players and themales in the crowd was much, much higher than it was at the girlsgame. No one at the girl?s game yelled at the referee or approachedanother player in an aggressive way. There was no fighting at thewomen?s game where there was at the men?s game. Studies haveshown that the higher level of testosterone a person has the moreaggressive that person will be. All of these examples have shown thatmost of the differences between men and women are influenced bybiology. They could not have been a result of cultural conditioning. . The gender test was created to support the biological side of thenature vs. nurture debate. I found this test to indeed prove genderdifferences to be influenced more by nature than nurture. This testshowed that males had a natural ability to recognize similarities anddifferences between mathematical objects. Of all the men that tookthis test, 65% got the mathematical question right where only a low34% of the women got it right, showing that men are naturally betterat math. Question number two of this test proved that females aremore intuitive to detail and memorized objects better than men. Anaverage score for females was fifteen where the average for maleswas a twelve. Question number three was an English orientedquestion proving that women were able to come up with moresynonyms than the men. This proved that women were naturallybetter at English. The average score for this question for females wasa 3.4 where the average for males was only a 2.1. Based on this test,men seem to obtain a natural talent in math where women have thattalent in English. Men seem to have a better connection to numbersand mathematical pictures and objects where the female holds thisconnection with words and material things. Women seem to beextremely intuitive to detail where men tend to overlook it. Myparticipation in this test proved to me that being exceptionally good ina certain area such as math or English has nothing to do with culturalconditioning. Either you have the talent or you do not. The 20/20 video provided supporting evidence for biologicalgender differences , which were similar to the gender test. Thedirection test was done at the University of Rochester. This testshowed that after being led through tunnels below the college, mostof the men knew exactly where they were. Not one of the femalesknew. This showed that males have a better sense of direction thanfemales. Having a good sense of direction is something that can notbe influenced by the environment. Another test that was shown in thisvideo was the object memorization test. This test was set up to see iffemales do have a natural ability to remember little objects. Thisexperiment showed that women are more intuitive to detail andremember little objects better than men. The females named almostevery object that was in the room with them whereas the males couldonly name a few. Experiments done on rats and monkeys show that the adding testosterone to females makes them more aggressive and lessnurturing. This experiment showed that the level of testosterone doescontribute to the amount of aggression a person or animal mighthave. This experiment also shows that my observation of the men?sbasketball game confirmed that men are biologically more aggressivethan females. Although all tests are not as equally convincing, the 20/20video also showed an experiment dealing with children?s toys.Children were brought into a room where a table was covered withmany different types of toys ranging from matchbox cars to make-up. This experiment was set up to prove that girls naturally play with?girl?s toys? and boys naturally play with ?boy?s toys.? The parentscould have easily influenced the choice of toys they preferred to playwith. According to experts in this video, any female that plays with?boy?s toys? have some kind of hormonal imbalance. After twenty five years of being brought up as a female,Herculine Barbin decided to pursue the rest of his life as a male. Right from the beginning, Herculine never felt as though she belongedwith the female gender. Herculine was very different from the othergirls. The fact that she was good at math and history and was bad atcrafts made her extremely different at the time. The amount of bodyhair she had was not normal for a female(26). The fact that she hadnever menstruated and never developed breasts made her anoutcast(125). Herculine also started having feelings toward otherfemales which indicate that Herculine was actually a man. Homosexuality did not occur or was not looked at as something thatwas appropriate for the time(126). Yet, the females were alsoattracted to Herculine but not because she was supposed to be a girlbut because she was so different. Many will argue that Herculine didnot succeed as a female and that is why she decided to pursue life asa man but Herculine felt lost among the female world. These feelingsof not belonging came form within. Many people argue that Herculine was an unsuccessful man.Being brought up female and then changing her lifestyle to that of amale?s caused many mental and emotional problems. Herculine didnot commit suicide because he felt like a failure but because he didnot have a sense of identity. All of the morals, values, and anythingthat made up a person was that of a females. His upbringing only ledhim to believe that he was a female when he was really more male.Starting over did not appeal to him so there was no sense in living. Herculine committed suicide as a result of what society did to him. Making him believe that he was a woman was when he was more of aman is what caused his death. He was suffering depression notbecause he failed as a man but because he did not know where hebelonged. Herculine could not help these feelings because males andfemales are different and Herculine was seeing both sides of it. Somethings just can not be helped or changed because they are a result ofnature. Environmental advocates argue that biology does not haveanything to do with the differences between men and women. Although they bring up the fact that men and women have completelydifferent reproductive organs, they still argue that there are no realsignificant physical differences between the sexes (Hubbard 40). According to Hubbard, the clothes we wear, the games we play, thefood we eat, and the kind of schools we go to all affect our biology(41).The major components of cultural conditioning are family, sociallife, and culture, not biology. Many of the things that are looked at asbiological were supposedly proved to be a result of social conditioning. How can cultural conditioning affect physical strength? It is extremelyrare to see women holding jobs in the field of construction or firefighting. The requirement of physical strength does not haveanything to do with being male or female. Women lack upper bodystrength. This is biological because males will always be strongerthan women due to their genetic make up. It is in their genes, theirmuscle tone is completely biological and the environment does notcontribute to this. The article ?John/Joan? simply proved that gender differencesare biological. Baby John was a result of a horrible tragedy and hislife was determined by doctors and surgeons. John proved that beingfemale was not where he belonged. No one influenced these feelingshis biological make up was that of a man?s. There was nothing hecould do to get rid of these feelings. A certain surgery or culturalinfluence does not seem to have anything to do with Joan?s decisionto become a man. He knew that he should have been a man anddecided to have reconstructive surgery to regain his manhood. Afterthe surgery, he proved to everyone that he could not fight thedifferences men and women have proving these differences to bebiological Colapinto 96). The questionnaire that my group and I created proved genderdifferences to be influenced by both nature and nurture. Yet therewere many answers that went against the grain, everyone has theirown opinion. There are so many factors that contribute to theinfluences nature and nurture have on gender differences but ourquestionnaire showed that there were a majority of different answersto each question. Overall, this research showed many sides to this debate. Wewill probably never find out what influences our gender differencemore. Everyone is going to have their own opinion and evidence toback it up. From all of the sources used these differences are mainlybiological and cultural conditioning only played a small part in whatwe believe to be the differences between men and women.

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