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Showing posts from September, 2006

Gender Myths: Let Science Decide

Studies Say Women Are Safer, Men More Reckless By JOHN STOSSEL and GAIL DEUTSCH Sept. 28, 2006 — ABC 20/20 News People joke about the differences between men and women: Men don't listen. Women can't read maps. Men snore more. Women are less likely to have affairs. But are men and women really different or are those statements myths? It turns out that science says men and women are different. At the University of Rochester, students were blindfolded and then led through a maze of tunnels that run underneath the campus. The experimenter stayed behind them and guided them with a tap on the shoulder so they wouldn't run into anyone. When the women were asked where a college building was, they rarely knew. Men, however, have a better sense of spatial relations, according to the experiment. Most knew roughly where they were. In contrast, at York University in Toronto, students were asked to wait in a cluttered room. After two minutes, the experimenter moved them to another room a

State of Mind

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Gender identity is a state of mind. If one has it internalized there is not, at least in principle, any assimilation issue vis-a-vis the exterior world. The reality and the world are in essence what oneself makes of it from his/her interior world. Thus, each person can live different experiences even in a same place and time. A state of mind is what turns out after a series of experiencies and challenges which goes by the discovery, then the rediscovery (re-establishment) and finally, the trascendence (let go) of the social canons in respect to sex and gender. Summarizing, it is a state of mind which, if we achieve it (working it enough), very well can become the state of mind of our environ. This would mean that we find ourselves highly conscious of who we are, what are we doing here and where we are heading.

What is Feminine?

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We often make reference to "feminine", an energy that many of us admire and/or aspire to on a daily basis. What I am pondering at the moment is - what does it mean to be feminine? How do we define femininity? Although there are some basic generalizations about the term, beyond that there is tremendous diversity of what is deemed feminine. If we set aside the notion that only biologic women can be feminine, if we separate physical from gender and say that both males and females can possess femininity, I query what is this coveted quality we aspire to? What is feminine, and how does our self expression change when we become more feminine? Focusing on the positive aspects of femininity, I'd like to give a few ideas of my own, a non-exhaustive list of what I deem to be feminine characteristics and how we show them, and hopefully get some feedback from you reading this. I think transgendered women, be they part time or full time, have an abundance of inner feminine. Many have

Babies in womb exposed to 'gender-bending' chemicals

By EMILY COOK, The Daily Mail Babies are being exposed to "gender-bending" chemical pesticides before they are even born, disturbing new evidence has showed. Tests on blood taken from the placentas of pregnant women revealed up to fifteen different types of pesticide, the research found. Worryingly, the chemicals were found in every single one of the 308 women tested. The findings will fuel concern about the chemicals, known as hormone disruptors or EDCs - endocrine-disrupting chemicals. High levels of exposure have been linked to reproductive abnormalities - so-called gender-bending - because they upset the hormonal development of the embryo. The effects are already being seen in nature where some species of fish and animals with deformed sex organs have been found. Scientists blame agricultural pesticides and other hazardous chemicals such as those found in flame retardants which have leaked into the environment. Last year a similar report by WWF-UK and Greenpeace found tha

Effluent tipping scales on fish gender

A landmark study has found that wastewater from sewage-treatment plants in Boulder and Denver is causing gender deformities in suckers living downstream. By Katy Human Denver Post Staff WriterDenverPost.com Wastewater pouring from sewage-treatment plants in Boulder and Denver is bending the gender of fish living downstream, a new study has found. Some of these strangely sexed sucker fish have male and female organs, and others have sexual deformities, according to a study by University of Colorado researchers. "It's sort of a sentinel for us," said David Norris, a CU biologist and an author of the report. "Every major city in the Western U.S. is looking at it." The paper, published this month in the journal Comparative Biochemistry and Physiology, is the first peer-reviewed study documenting the reproductive problems of fish downstream from Colorado wastewater-treatment plants. Similarly odd fish have been found in England and in the Potomac River in Washington,