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Originally posted by Fr. Gregory:

I submit that there are real embedded differences between men and women deeper than the physical although conditioned by the physical.

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I agree with you on this Fr. Gregory. In addition, I think there are real embedded differences between one man and another. And between women. Between races. Between cultures. I'm not like any woman I've ever met, but I'm unlike any man I've met either.

Men tend to be different from women in some specific ways, but those are only tendencies. I know women who are very athletic and competitive and men who are passive and artistic. So, we notice different tendencies between the sexes, but we can make no absolutes.

I have several hunches here, and they disagree with each other. So I'll hold fire till I get a sense of where this thread is going. But I must say, my first reaction is that I can't think of any Scriptural back-up for your theory. Do you have any?

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Gill:
.... although men can deny having wet dreams

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That depends on who does the laundry!

And that floor polisher thing is just plain scary.

Before getting into differences, are we talking about differences of population norms or individual differences?

When men vs. women are compared as populations, differences are real. But the averages of these two populations for almost any variable are not that far apart, so they have a high degree of overlap. That means that it is easy for us to confuse the issue of population vs. individual because any of us can think of some person that is so far from the group average on some variable that he or she looks to fit the average of the other population.

Here is the crux of the matter:
Does different mean that it is OK for one of the types to be "normative" and "right," and all other manifestations of humanness to be "inferior"?

Traditionally, male has been considered normal and right, and female has been considered inferior and wrong.

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Originally posted by Nancy Winningham:

Here is the crux of the matter:
Does different mean that it is OK for one of the types to be "normative" and "right," and all other manifestations of humanness to be "inferior"?

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That's one crux. But another important one (straying dangerously close to an area which Fr G asked us to avoid) is unwarranted discrimination in important areas such as employment, on the basis not of suitability for the job but of sex alone.

There is a moral imperative (and in some countries a legal one) on employers to select on the basis of suitability of the individual candidates for the job. It is not fair to discriminate on the basis of membership of some group about whom you have a prejudice; i.e. a group who you have pre-judged en masse.

We have women firefighters in Britain now, not because the average woman is as physically strong as the average man, but because the women accepted exceed the Fire Service's minimum requirements for physical strength.

If there were an opportunity for paid employment as a sperm donor (!!!) or a role as a guinea pig in genetic research which required specifically male chromosomes, it would be quite reasonable and acceptable to discriminate against women.

I believe that as an employer the church should be exemplary in this matter. If we wish to employ sperm donors we should not waste money and time interviewing women. If we seek firefighters we should judge applicants on their merits. If we need someone to say the mass ... oops, not allowed to discuss that.

Human rights are based on the christian principles of decency, fairness and justice; they are not a 20th century heresy.

I think, rather, that we have tended through the centuries to identify characteristics as "male" or "female", and so draw artificial distinctions between the genders. This is then reinforced throught further generations, by parental and peer pressure.

(a) biology - men are physically stronger, and are aggressive, which are necessities in God's createdly violent world;

(b) theology - men have withihn them the image of God, which is Fatherhood. The Father-Son relationship is the primary one at the heart of the universe, therefore the only truly human representation of God is a man.

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(c) whereas men as perfect in themselves, the only part of them that requires saving being their moral decisions, women must be saved by becoming less like women. They must be docile, submissive and should not assume any right over a man.

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I think you have this the wrong way round. It's women who are perfect - after all it was the sin of Adam, remember. Eve's fault was that she was duped, and much of that was down to Adam anyway. So we should all be conformed to Eve's image. Like mainstream protestantism...

That's pants and can be disproved by the Bible, In Christ there is no Jew nor Greek, slave nor free, male and female and "male and female he created them [in the image of God]"

You'll have to do better than that

God is our Father and our Mother. The Hebrew word for God is gender neutral. But it gets translated as "He" as it would be disrespectful to describe the "Lord of Lords" as "It". Using the word "She" would be far to radical for most Biblical translators.

You bad, bad person.

As for you Stowaway, how dare you suggest that those who canonised women preachers and teachers were going against the apostolic tradition?

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Bottom line - God likes men, and puts up with women because he has to

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Thanks Dyfrig. I'm wondering where the Blessed Virgin Mary fits in to this?

And from Virgins, to er, not being Virgins. As a broad sweeping generalisation Men are pretty obsessed by sex and Women realise this and use it to hold power over men. By being able to control the distribution of this "thing" that men want and women are able to give, women can make men do what ever they want to. It is, basically, attitudes towards the "sexual act" (as the Anglicans call it) that differentiate men and women in this day and age.

Perhaps.

You'll never make it to Swansea at this rate

Is it you who's getting married soon?! Does your wife to be know about these views ....

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But Tubbs, don't you see what you're doing? By saying that it's ultimately inappropriate to apply any "gender" to God you're having to force us to rethink whether the words "Father and Son" as 'biological' terms are appropriate to the ontological relationship (as opposed to say, a quasi-legal paradigm of authority and inheritance). And that would make you a member of the congregation of naughty men, as clearly it implies that maleness per se was not essential to Jesus' representation/iconisation of God, and thus we are forced into the totally unacceptable conclusion that the "Christ-representative" at the eucharist has to human, but nothing more specific.

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You may have to explain the word ontological as it sounds medical to me!

But what I'm basically saying this that

• God is our Father and Mother. He loves and nutures us in both ways as both are equally important.

• God gives equal value and love to men and women. He gave us different abilities so we could work together to serve him and each other
• Historically, it would have been difficult for Jesus to have been a woman. So he came to earth as a man. This doesn't justify sexism within the Church. However it does explain why certain sections of the Church believe that only men can carry out certain roles within the Church. [But I won't go there as I've gone there elsewhere]

So how toasted am I?!

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Originally posted by ylm:
As a broad sweeping generalisation Men are pretty obsessed by sex and Women realise this and use it to hold power over men. By being able to control the distribution of this "thing" that men want and women are able to give, women can make men do what ever they want to. It is, basically, attitudes towards the "sexual act" (as the Anglicans call it) that differentiate men and women in this day and age.

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Errmmm..... most women want sex too...

I see this as the extreme example of using the general differences between men and women as a prescription of what a man or a woman should be.

In general, it is thought, men have a higher sex drive than women. But take any specific woman, and you may find that she has a higher sex drive than the average man. Or than her partner.

So what do we do to her? We call her a nyphomaniac, because we consider her behaviour inappropriate for a woman. We make her feel like an unwoman. We do this also to women who don't want to be mothers, or who are career-orientated, or who aren't classically beautiful and willowy slim, and IT'S NOT FAIR!!!

And we do it to men who are physically slight, quiet, arty and empathetic. And that's not fair either.

There are lots of difference, on average, between men and women. But we are all individuals, and should be accepted as such, irrespective of how closely we conform to the stereotype of our gender

ylm - isn't that the Dutch national airline? No matter - as is taught clearly in the gospel*, Mary is accepted as an Apostle by being made an honorary man.

*of Thomas.

Tubbs - you are a fool.. Clearly I am superior to 'frin. That's why she's Host and I'm ....er.....not one.

....yee--eesss. Hmmmm....

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So what do we do to her? We call her a nyphomaniac, because we consider her behaviour inappropriate for a woman. We make her feel like an unwoman. We do this also to women who don't want to be mothers, or who are career-orientated, or who aren't classically beautiful and willowy slim, and IT'S NOT FAIR!!!

And we do it to men who are physically slight, quiet, arty and empathetic. And that's not fair either.

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I'm one of the two above, BarbaraG - I agree with you entirely. I just figured that Dyfrig needed some help being controversial.

IMHO, a lot of the time it is only a combination of 'plumbing' (Horrible choice of word, I imagine a man in a boiler suit looking at me and saying "By 'eck, who put *that* in for you!") and social response.

Men - every been caught buying skincare products?
Women - ever ordered a pint and a bag of dry-rosted?

There is no reason for men and women not to do these (and similar) things. But the looks are there; the sly comments and raised eybrows... and it does stink and I do hate it.

But anyway - sexuality - explain

Female masturbation: media presents this as sexy, wicked and glamourous.

Male masturbation: media presents this as pathetic, lonely and sad.

Why?

Tubbs

Could it be that women are constructed as objects of sexuality and the only objects. So a woman by herself has a toy to play with whereas a man by himself does not?

Now the way I see it - and this is where my views on this and the priests thread must come together, so please take this as read on the other thread too, and apologies for repetition, but I'm taking the opportunity to clarify my thinking - is this....

if the Catholic (I use this in the broad sense of the agreed, pre-East/West split) Church teaches that - the Second Person of the Trinity became fully human, then just as their is the "ontological" basic Godness about Jesus Christ, then there must be a basic "ontological" basic "human"-ness about him too. The early church, from the Johannine Epistles and Hebrews all the way to the 4th and 5th centuries made the point that he was fully human - because if wasn't fully human, he could save human beings. "What he did not assume he did not save" (Greg Nazianzen? Nyssa? I forget.)

So far so splendid. By this reasoning there is a basic human-ness which Jesus shares with us all - men, women, children, black, white, purple, green, abled and disabled, sexually active or not - which I shall designate for reference only as "H". If this were not so he could only save those (unspecified) limited sub-sets of humanity who shared his nature.

"H" is that thing which is common to all. Although qualified in actual life by various biological and sociological effects, there is an "H"-ness about all of us.

Now, Gregory (Hallam, that is, Gregory Nazianzen being dead and unable to participate in this thread) asked the question whether there are any real differences between men and women.

Now, we can think of examples between a particular man and a particular woman - e.g. 'frin is much brighter than me and much more tolerant.

We can think of social differences - women do communicate more freely and deeply than men, it seems, though whether this is ontological or cultural I do not know. Consider for a moment the depth of friendship between David and Jonathan, "Greater than the love of women", suggesting that it was very different from the usual male inter-relationship.

And we can physically see differences - different bumps, different ways of peeing. (Tho' I'm well aware that early in pregnancy there is one piece of anatomy that then become either a penis or a clitoris).

But are these differences, whether we acknowledge them or not, ontolgocial? Do they effect our basic "H"-ness?

If they do, then orthodoxy (with a little and a bit O) has a problem: what he did not assume he did not save. If there is an element of "H"-ness which is different between male and female, then could Incarnation as one of these sub-sets be truly fully human? You create two types of "H" - HM and HW.

If there are parts of "H" which Jesus Christ did not have - e.g. he didn't have an ontological HW-ness - then surely he did not, could have saved HW-ness. Making male/female differences leads to the unacceptable conclusion that those who did not have the HM of Jesus Christ had (rahter than just H) were not saved.

Equally, if one were to argue that a priest is Christ's representative, then anyone with H can represent him - and I mean, anyone. Anyone having "H". But to say that a woman cannot be the icon of Christ is again to run up against "what he did not assume he cannot save", because if there is such an ontological difference between the H of a man and the H of a woman that a woman cannot represent someone who is purportedly fully H, then the person being represented is, ipso facto, not fully H. He is only HM - and that is not fully human.

So what you're saying - using, for some reason, algebra and sut theory - is that men and women are both human, but are different kinds of human. And it is the taking on of humanity, not of a particular gender, was Christ's important act. The M and W attributes are simply that - attributes of a object rather than an object.

Thank you for clearing that up. Are you an Anglican, by any chance?

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? (Is it Lossky or Schmemann (not sure) who argues that women are actually saved by Mary and that it is she who introduces the feminine into the Godhead?)

GH: This is not Orthodox doctrine and is not taught by either theologian, (and I have read a lot of their works not unsurprisingly).

As to the question ... I'll ask another one ...

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Originally posted by Fr. Gregory:

Why do transgendered individuals frequently justify their desires to "be" the opposite sex in terms such as "I have always been a woman. I want to be a woman, Help me be a woman, (& vice versa).

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I don't know any personally, but I get the impression they want to change gender, not sex.

(Gender being the cultural milieu associated by a particular socioety with a particular sex).

Surgery to the sex organs doesn't alter chromosomes. It will affect hormonal balance but it won't change from a typical male mix of hormones to a typical female one, (a eunuch's voice is quite different to a woman's) and it certainly won't introduce monthly cycles.

I think they want to feel feminine, and be perceived as a woman.

Castrate a man and he becomes virtually harmless. Literally soft. It's the greatest cure for baldness and aggressive sexuality.

Testosterone is as powerful in it's own way, more so perhaps, than oestrogen and progesterone - the latter being the cause of PMS/T and much, much, more besides ... all sorts of funny behaviour.

The amount of skin a woman exposes is directly correlated with her implantability, the call of the wild ovum is awesome.

Testosterone's power is such that it shrivels the corpus collosum between the cerebral hemispheres and men are incapable, absolutely incapable, of multitasking as the result of it.

The best man isn't as good as the worst woman, intellect being equal.

The focus that testosterone brings is complemented by men's narrower visual field and allows the risk taking that benefits otherwise intellectually equal men and women in exam situations, which is why more men get firsts than women. And more thirds.

Multitasking in a primary child carer has survival benefits.

It is a myth that boys are more immature than girls. Boys mature psychologically just as fast but their bodies don't catch up so that they will not have to be physically put down in competition with older males, who therefore tolerate their otherwise competitive personalities. In girls the opposite is true, they become superficially 'little women' that their minds can expand in to the role of woman by being treated like one - hopefully at a crucial distance.

All of this is genetic.

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Originally posted by Dyfrig:
And we can physically see differences - different bumps, different ways of peeing. (Tho' I'm well aware that early in pregnancy there is one piece of anatomy that then become either a penis or a clitoris).

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Many remarkable things happen to a woman's body during pregnancy, but nothing that weird.

You mean that early in gestation there is one piece....

I assume that this is the phrase (particularly) that you can't understanD-

"They (sic, the sexes) are not interchangeable in the sense of being congruent."

"Congruent" is a term from mathematics. It refers to the absolute identicality of 2 shapes such that one superimposed over the other will not lead to overlap.

I am saying that male / maleness and female / femaleness are equal in dignity and status but not congruent in their respective human profiles .... and I don't mean just the "plumbing" (Dyfrig)!

I started the other thread on "plumbing" i order to expose this to debate, (where he it would just get lost in equal opportunities).

This raises another interesting issue. (It may start as another thread if I think it useful).

I submit that there are two types of Christian feminists (or feminist Christians). The Elaine Storkey variety (Protestant) where gender is incidental to be human human and where equal opportunities largely conditions the ordination debate, and the Rosemary Radford Ruether variety (Catholic) where gender / sexuality imparts vital differences which lead to new conceptions of God.