Women: are you wearing pants? You have a disease!

[Raistlin]

I refuse to believe this research wasn't conducted by The Onion. (http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/2010/06/attention_perversely_assertive.php)


"Gender-related behaviors, namely childhood play, peer association, career and leisure time preferences in adolescence and adulthood, maternalism, aggression, and sexual orientation become masculinized in 46,XX girls and women with 21OHD deficiency [CAH]. These abnormalities have been attributed to the effects of excessive prenatal androgen levels on the sexual differentiation of the brain and later on behavior." Nimkarn and New continue: "We anticipate that prenatal dexamethasone therapy will reduce the well-documented behavioral masculinization…"

Not only is your non-wimpy state abnormal, but it can be corrected in future generations with prenatal drugs. Yes, these terrible personality traits in these freak women like making eye contact and being assertive, can thankfully be fixed so their offspring can go back to the kitchen.

[~*~Celes~*~]

:stare:

[Shlup]

I realize that the line between "characteristic" and "disorder" is sometimes subjective, but come on.

[Bunny]

ShlupQuack is now the manliest thing on the planet.

[rubah]

oops!

[fire_of_avalon]

There are no words. Just blind rage.

[Clo]

I took off my pants. Am I safe now?

I'm just dispaired at the money that went into researching this.

[Bunny]

I took off my pants. Am I safe now?

I will have to personally confirm that you have taken these measures to ensure your safety. If you could send me a picture to my mailbox, I will get back to you with an answer in 5-6 business days.

[qwertysaur]

Wait until the fundamentalist Muslims learn that their earthquakes are caused by a disease now.

He's a developmental biologist so he gets to make claims like this because the way you experiment in this field is to mutilate it very early in development and see what happens. Also he specializes in working with fish.

[Shlup]

To be fair, my pants have Eeyore and flowers all over them. Not very manly.

[~*~Celes~*~]

mine are red with pink and white snowflakes and a pink ribbon to tighten the waist.

[Rodarian]

Pants are pants ladies.... So its time to burn them all and start wearing puff skirts and girdles....


And no under garments either....Those are pants as well....:colbert:

[Clo]

And no under garments either....Those are pants as well....:colbert:
Thongs look nothing like pants. :doublecolbert:

[Agent Proto]

Thongs are acceptable undergarments, imo. :thumb:

[Christmas]

I dun know, with cute looks, nice figure and maybe a pair of nice boobs with a nice character, I think pants or no pants a lady will still look lovely. :bigsmile:

I think those researchers spend more time studying rather than to understand a woman. :bigsmile:

[Rodarian]

And no under garments either....Those are pants as well....:colbert:
Thongs look nothing like pants. :doublecolbert:

If they have two 'holes' to slip your legs into...they are pants.... I decree this!

[Aerith's Knight]

We can't really blame them that they want to be like us, seeing as we're awesome.

But it can't be emulated, so get back into the kitchen!

[Madame Adequate]

In all, stony-faced seriousness, what is wrong with it? The unborn child has absolutely no control over their characteristics. Unless they are given something objectively negative, why does it matter whether those characteristics are induced naturally or adjusted by human interference.

[Raistlin]

In all, stony-faced seriousness, what is wrong with it? The unborn child has absolutely no control over their characteristics. Unless they are given something objectively negative, why does it matter whether those characteristics are induced naturally or adjusted by human interference.

The fact that "masculine" characteristics are considered "abnormal" in women; the attitude that it is a bad thing in need of correcting.

Otherwise, I don't care. If it was perfectly safe and just for personal preferences, I'd have no problem. But it's not perfectly safe and it's based on ridiculous gender role prejudices.

What is wrong if people think women should be meek and in the kitchen?

[Rebellious Eagle]

Well, does wearing shorts count as manly, seeing as most guys don't wear really short shorts anyway? :|

[Mo-Nercy]

What a stupid piece of research. Gender-related behaviours shouldn't be thought of as biological conceptions, because they're socially created. If a woman is "too masculine", it's not because something's biologically wrong with them, but because society's perception of them is too narrow minded.

Anyway,
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v194/monercy/080211.jpg

[Madame Adequate]

In all, stony-faced seriousness, what is wrong with it? The unborn child has absolutely no control over their characteristics. Unless they are given something objectively negative, why does it matter whether those characteristics are induced naturally or adjusted by human interference.

The fact that "masculine" characteristics are considered "abnormal" in women; the attitude that it is a bad thing in need of correcting.

Otherwise, I don't care. If it was perfectly safe and just for personal preferences, I'd have no problem. But it's not perfectly safe and it's based on ridiculous gender role prejudices.

What is wrong if people think women should be meek and in the kitchen?

All I have seen is almost-hysterical reporting on the research in question; I've not seen anything from the researchers themselves. Indeed the only direct references seem to be those regarding CAH, an actual medical condition. From where I am sitting it seems quite possible that the researchers merely observed that this was a possible consequence (And from the quote in the sidebar, this seems to be exactly the case). Whilst the article has much outrage at the long list of bodies which have endorsed this, I think it somewhat unlikely that there is a huge cabal of scientists across North America and Europe is all in this scheme to 'fix' women.

[Psychotic]

Why must women suck so hard?

...

heyooooo.

[Laddy]

BECAUSE YOU'RE A WOMAN!

[Christmas]

http://www.teeshirtsdirect.com/images/transfers/Lg_SCU0010.png
http://buy-online-shopping-mall.com/images/pants/bad-things-start-with-men-girl.jpg
http://emailfwds.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/12/menadvicecolumn.jpg

[Clo]

"We anticipate that prenatal dexamethasone therapy will reduce the well-documented behavioral masculinization…"

It's not that this is a grand plot to "fix" women, but the idea of desiring to "reduce" masculinization of females is a bit off. To what degree is this masculinization anyway? Because they say it in that sidequote, does aggression in a little girl count as her acting like a male? Is this bad? Because when I think of aggression in a child, I think of roughhousing, or tiny little spats, which I don't think is necessarily that horrible for a little girl. And they mention sexual orientation as well.

And really, if one reads this wrong (which people will do) it almost sounds like a suggested cure for homosexuality. I'm not saying we should go burn the people who put out this research, but if a female grows up a little masculine, what's so wrong with that? (Unless they have CAH, in which case there are other physiological problems that need to be treated). Is it right to believe that the next go around we should change the hormone levels in the womb to get it RIGHT? Right being a girl who comes out and isn't a little more aggressive and is attracted to men like she is supposed to be?

It's not healthy by any means to say that men should act like this and women should act like that, and the research, whatever intention there is behind it, inevitably does that.

Meyer-Bahlburg, who wrote “Sexual Orientation in Women with Classical or Non-Classical Congenital Adrenal Hyperplasia as a Function of Degree of Prenatal Androgen Excess” says in ANOTHER paper:


"CAH women as a group have a lower interest than controls in getting married and performing the traditional child-care/housewife role. As children, they show an unusually low interest in engaging in maternal play with baby dolls, and their interest in caring for infants, the frequency of daydreams or fantasies of pregnancy and motherhood, or the expressed wish of experiencing pregnancy and having children of their own appear to be relatively low in all age groups.”

And I guess, should we really be concerned if some women aren't going to fantasize about child-care and pregnancy? This suggests it's a biological norm for a little girl to pick up a baby doll. It's just everybody else's take on the research that is looking bad. Yes, CAH is a serious disease, and that should be treated. But this language that they're using doesn't really do the society any good.

When this sort of language is used, it should be called out for being wrong.

[BarelySeeAtAll]

Read the first part of this article and just felt like throwing my laptop out of the window in pure anger. This was written by a man wasn't it?

FIGURES. *breathes*

[leader of mortals]

Wait... We're going to start administering medicine to fix babies to the way we as society need them? I love Brave New World!

[Mirage]

To be fair, my pants have Eeyore and flowers all over them. Not very manly.

They sound manlier than my pants!

[Raistlin]

All I have seen is almost-hysterical reporting on the research in question

This is called joking hyperbole, which you partake in without the adjective in this very post:


Whilst the article has much outrage at the long list of bodies which have endorsed this, I think it somewhat unlikely that there is a huge cabal of scientists across North America and Europe is all in this scheme to 'fix' women.

No one has claimed this. Or at least, no one sane.


I've not seen anything from the researchers themselves. Indeed the only direct references seem to be those regarding CAH, an actual medical condition. From where I am sitting it seems quite possible that the researchers merely observed that this was a possible consequence (And from the quote in the sidebar, this seems to be exactly the case).

CAH is a legitimate condition that can have physical symptoms which certainly need fixing. The "slight masculinization" alleged personality symptoms should not justify a "fix" or to be considered so abnormal. The apparent attitudes towards societal norms is what triggers the mocking/outrage.

EDIT: Everything Clo says is true, as well.

[aquatius]

I only got this when I remembered pants is American for trousers >>

But yeah, sounds like a load of crap.