well, I finished the paper... With two hours to spare. I'm not going to bed, though. That would probably just screw me up more. Instead I'm gonna work on other homework that got neglected this weekend.

Here's the paper:

Step Outside the Social Norms

E.O. Wilson and Lesley Rogers have different views on the relationship between biological bodies and social behavior. Wilson believes this relationship is based on the evolution of our genes causing us to adapt with certain roles in society. Since Wilson bases this behavior difference in men and women on genes, it is unchangeable and therefore accept as how society should function. Rogers brings to our attention that the similarities between men and women are being severely overlooked. While we observe many differences in behavior, the genetic differences are few in number. It is society’s perception of the genetic differences that causes the attitude toward the expectation of social behavior.

According to E.O. Wilson in his article “Sex” from On Human Nature, genes are selfish, that is to say they want to be passed on. Asexual reproduction is safer compared to the risks that arise with sexual intercourse, and it is more productive with passing on genes. Yet human beings are sexual beings. Even though sexual reproduction produces a diversity in genes that allows them to adapt to the environment better and thus better survive, humans are sexual beings for a different reason says Wilson. He believes that sex is first a means of bonding.

The gender ware assigned at birth gives us a sexual and social role that we are expected to fill through out our lifetime. “A woman can expect to produce only about four hundred eggs in her lifetime. Of these a maximum of about twenty can be converted into healthy infants,” while “a man releases 100 million sperm with each ejaculation,” (Wilson 124). These biological differences result in a social difference. Since a woman can only produce so many eggs and must carry the child in her womb for nine months, she is more invested in the upbringing of the child. She is responsible for producing milk that will feed the child and spends years carrying for the child until it can care for itself. Therefore, she wants to find a man who will stay with her and help her raise the child. “In theory it is more profitable for females to be coy, to hold back until they can identify males with the best genes,” (Wilson 125). In society today, this has led to the idea that women won’t easily have sex with men and any who do gain a bad reputation as being “easy”.

For men, on the other hand, it is more productive to have as many sexual partners as possible so as to pass on his genes. The idea that genes are selfish means men are biologically pushed to gain as many partners as possible. Men are thus seen as aggressive, hasty, and undiscriminating. This has created a double standard where it is ok for men to sleep around, but not women. Even though we are all horny, sexually beings, women are expected to be coy while men are all but encouraged to have sex.

Reproduction is not the only way that gender has predetermined the roles we have in society. “Men are on average 20 to 30 pounds heavier than women. Pound for pound, they are stronger and quicker in most categories of sport,” (Wilson 126-127). Generally, the bodies of men are built to be more physically capable than the bodies of women. In society today this has evolved into the idea that men are supposed to be fit while women should be dainty. Anyone who falls out of this social norm tends to be subject to ridicule from their peers. Wilson suggests that these physical differences led to societies where “men are responsible for most or all of the hunting and women for most or all of the gathering,” (Wilson 139). The genetic differences of men and women has resulted in social roles that they are expected to carry out. For decades, men worked to support his family while women stayed home to raise the family and tend to the house. In many cases the work women did to maintain the household was actually more than what men did, yet men were still seen as the more dominant sex. Our genetic differences are “hardwired” into our genes, resulting with a continuation of the same social behaviors through out the evolutionary process.

Lesley Rogers, as opposed to Wilson, believes we are focusing too much on the genetic differences between men and women and we are overlooking the many similarities. “It is much easier to identify differences between the sexes than to find out what caused them,” (Rogers 23) Rogers states in her article “What Causes Sex Differences?” from Sexing the Brain. Out of twenty-three chromosomes that every human being has in their genetic make-up, only one pair differs between men and women: the XX and XY chromosomes (25). This one genetic difference supposedly determines the difference in behaviors between men and women. Can we accurately expect the difference in one gene to cause the many differences we observe between the sexes?

Hormones are another factor that is seen as a difference but is actually a similarity between the sexes.
On average, males have more testosterone that females, but there is a considerable overlap, with many women having higher levels of testosterone in their bloodstream than many males. Similarly, although estrogen and progesterone are referred to as female sex hormones, there are times when men have higher levels of these hormones than women, (Rogers 30).
To base social behavior differences between the sexes on hormones would be incorrect since both men and women have the same hormones. So what, then, causes behavior differences?

The influence of social environments, says Rogers, may cause many biological differences. By society’s standards, girls are supposed to wear pink and play with dolls while boys are supposed to wear blue and play with toy trucks. Parents impose these ideas on their children, teaching them from a young age that this is what it means to be a boy or a girl. My seven-year-old nephew's favorite color is pink, but my sister, his mother, will not let him wear pink when he goes out. Purple is OK to wear, but pink is a girl’s color that he, therefore, should not wear. However, “it has been argued that the different environments are not simply imposed on girls and boys by the society around them, but that the child seeks to put herself or himself in an environment typical for a girl or a boy,” (Rogers 32). Children understand they have a gender and they seek to put themselves within the norm of their gender.

“Our physical appearance has a large effect on how other people treat us throughout life,” (Rogers 34). There is a social expectation of how men and women should look and dress. Any one outside these social norms is immediately noticed and judged, even if you consider yourself to be a nonjudgmental person. For instance, I was walking home one day last year when I passed a man wearing a skirt and high-heels. This man was doing absolutely nothing out of the ordinary. Everyday I see women dressed in skirts and high-heels and take no notice. But because I saw a man dressed in clothes that are in no way typical of men’s clothes, I noticed and the image of him has stuck in my mind for the past year. Honestly, my first thought was “Is he a man? Or is that a very masculine woman?” “Biological factors often have less to do with our actually physique than the cultural aspect of how we present ourselves,” (Rogers 34) meaning, it is less of whether you are a man or a woman and more a question of if you look like how society believes your gender should look.

As opposed to Wilson, Rogers does not favor the relationship between genetics and social behavior. Wilson views this relationship as being caused by the biology of human beings, making it “hardwired” into our nature and thus unavoidable. Rogers points out the stereotypes this relationship creates that has nothing to do with the individual people, but rather the comfort of what is acceptable by the vast majority of society.

Unfortunately, I, along with countless other people, find myself trying to fit the social norm of how women should behave and appear, at least to an extent. I believe I am not alone when I say my years of grade school were constantly filled with the desire to fit in. No kid wants to be the one that stands out during the time when everyone is just beginning to figure out who they are. While I try to fit the social norm of how I should act, I also notice those who don’t, further contributing to society’s idea of how men and women should act. I am not a judgmental person, but I do make assumptions on people’s personalities based on their appearance without consciously doing so, and I believe I am not alone. Society has given us such a strong idea of what makes a man a man and a woman a woman that it is difficult to step outside that perception and view people with a non-bias idea of how they should look and act. The articles we have read for class have shown me just how often I do this. However, they have also given me a new perspective of the cause of social behavior today. You would think that since sexual reproduction creates a diversity in genes it would also create a social acceptable diversity in behavior. Yet no matter how much we differ genetically between sex, race, and culture, the expectations of behavior of men and women, in all cultures, remain.