“Women instinctively nurture, men instinctively protect.” Agree or disagree?

[bente2]

I just answered someone’s q with this, and wanted to know your opinion on it!

Agree

Disagree

Updates

+1 y

So far the majority of men disagree and seem to think they are also nurturing. Tbh I like that, means there’s been some change in the gender roles.

[BlueCoyote]

I generally become VERY skeptical when I hear statements that begin with "men do x" or "women do y". The same goes for races or nationalities or age segments or other social groups.
I find such statements painfully generalizing. I'm sure many men like to protect... but is it a majority? And how would we even go about measuring this? What actions do we define as "nurturing" or "protecting" or "neither"? And what if I enjoy doing BOTH of them depending on my mood and my overall situation?

Take me. I like the feeling of "protecting" my wife but it's not like I ever get the chance to actually do it. We live in one of the safest, most peaceful nations in the world. It's normal for 5-year old kids to walk to Kindergarten by themselves and for young women to walk home alone at night. What am going to protect my wife of? Maybe the occasional spider on our living room wall? Except she actually doesn't mind killing them. All the things that could in fact pose a danger to my girl are things she has to take care of herself. Say, she might have an accident with her bicycle but that's surely not something I can protect her from. Nor am I sure if I should even try. I mean... she's an adult and she has to decide for herself what risks she wants to take. I'm not her nanny and I'm sure she wouldn't want me to be that way.
On the other hand, my wife has been sick for the past few days and I helped her with things. I brewed tea for her, cooked for her... small stuff. Does that make me less of a man? And if so, why should I even care?

Generally speaking, I feel very uncomfortable about these "men do this, women do that"-claims. I frankly think they are extremely goofy. To me, they come across like a really, really desperate way of pressing men and women into some kind of old-fashioned gender roles.

I believe we shouldn't even think of people's gender so much. You have a vagina. I have a penis. So what. That means literally nothing. There are women who like to dress like a princess and watch romantic comedies. And there are women who are soldiers or FBI agents or construction workers.

I wish people would simply approach other people as "humans", rather than making all kinds of prejudiced judgments based on their genitals. That's what I try to do on a daily basis. I meet someone, I listen to what they say, I try to understand who they are and how they tick and based on this I build myself an image of them. I believe that's a way of showing true interest in other humans.

[Vistial]

I'm not reading this book but from the first paragraph, it says, "How do we go about measuring it?" This app is kind of the point to get a small idea from the populous. ;p silly. polls=voting.

[BlueCoyote]

@Vistial
Well, while I cannot force you to read my comment, I do find your reaction extremely rude and disrespectful. You should know that I spent quite a lot of time to write a good, sensible and interesting answer. As you can tell from my mho-number, people generally like my answers because of this.
Fortunately, I know that other people WILL read and enjoy this post.

[safwat1]

Nice got some detail, thanks :)

[Nate1941]

Some of us appreciated your response :)

[Soporific-san]

"I wish people would simply approach other people as "humans", rather than making all kinds of prejudiced judgments based on their genitals."

GOD dammit. You got a upvote from me on that one. I completely agree with you. Enjoyed reading it.

[Stafa]

Well I have to disagree with you, even though nowadays we might not need this protection or nurturing but it's very recent from evolutionary perspective, and I believe it's coded deep down in us.

[CharlieUnicorn]

Well does anyone force you and your wife to live any certain way? Do you need a gender studies professor to coach you guys in your life arrangement?
Of course not. It's up to you and nobody else's business.

It's stupid to readily assume stuff about people you don't know, so I agree with you on that point. I just don't think meticulate gender progressive schooling is needed to achieve that, just basic decency.

The problem in your line of thinking is not when it applies on individual code of conduct but when you judge society.
Although safe guards against discrimination are needed, the fact that some activities and jobs are male/female dominated is a result of individual free will.

[surferfelix]

Yes, these are generalizations. Obviously each individual is different due to differences in cultural/social/political/economic backgrounds. Same goes for differences in sex of course, women and men both have each-others hormones (testosterone and estrogen) in different quantities from person to person. But yet we do define testosterone as masculine and estrogen as feminine.

Personally, I think this makes the question more concrete. Because there are certain behaviours associated with high quantities of each hormone. So is being caring or nurturing something we see with higher quantities of feminine hormones?

[Angelina04]

Everyone generalizes, our brains aren't supposed to rationally work everything

[MLGbreezy]

I have to agree and disagree. a lot of was generalized like i don't know anyone that i am friends with or in my family who would let a child walk to a kindergarten class by themselves or let a young girl walk home at night alone that is a disaster waiting to happen and bad parenting in my opioi on that's how kidnappings and rapes happen. and would not ever consider it i don't know where this is normalized for you but most people i know wouldn't agree with that statement just saying

[BlueCoyote]

@Nate1941
Thank you very much! I really appreciate your reply! :-)

[BlueCoyote]

@Soporific-san
Thank you very much for reading and thank. you for the response! :-)

[BlueCoyote]

@Stafa
I don't actually disagree with this. Of course there are biological aspects to human beings. What I find problematic - and I'm not saying that you are doing this - is the tendency of some people, especially on the right end of the political spectrum to think in extremely deterministic terms. Everything is decided by nature. I find that view simply too simplistic. The same is true for the view that is popular among some left-wingers (everything is decided by nurture and environment) - again, too simplistic.

I believe it is a mix of both. Surely we have some biological foundations but we are all still different and unique.

[BlueCoyote]

@CharlieUnicorn
Yes, fortunately my wife and I have been born in a time when we can live however we want - and anyone else can do the same. However, we shouldn't take this freedom for granted. Just go one generation back and things already look very different. And of course there are still many cultures that haven't quite caught up to our western freedom either. For example my wife comes from South Korea, where traditional gender roles (and also the idea of filial duty) are still very important and women who try to find something different for themselves are ostracized.

And yes, I agree with you that this concept doesn't have to be taught in a dogmatic way. I certainly wouldn't do that with my children. I don't believe one role model is better than the other. What matter is that you as an individual find your happiness. It's very straight-forward but still worthwhile mentioning I believe.

[BlueCoyote]

@Angelina04
Maybe so - but you can always make an conscious effort to view and enjoy the world in its full complexity. I mean, you don't squat in the backyard either when you need to poop just because you might have an evolutionary disposition to do so ;-)

[BlueCoyote]

@MLGbreezy
I am from Switzerland (as you might have missed in my post). Here, it is considered completely normal for children to walk to Kindergarten /school by themselves. It has always been like this and nothing ever happens. In fact, many Swiss parents would find the American way overprotective. We call it helicopter-parenting because those parents are constantly flying over their kids' heads and watching them like drones or helicopters. It takes away quite a lot of the kids' freedom for our mentality. I always loved and greatly enjoyed the way to Kindergarten/school. It was those 20 minutes where I felt most independent and free. I could talk and play with my friends, stop and look at interesting stuff... and there was no adult to tell us what to do.
The same goes for women (or indeed people) walking home alone at night. Cars are less important here than in the US. People below the age of 30 typically don't have one because they don't feel it's necessary. Busses usually (cont.)

[BlueCoyote]

@MLGbreezy
don't run after midnight. So the only way to get home is by bicycle or on foot. I walk home regularly too. I'm not a woman but I'm disabled. Again, I have never encountered any dangers. Maybe a hedgehog on the dark street ;-).

[Harsh_5299]

@BlueCoyote Wow, Your wonderfully bias free opinion just made my day...
I just don't understand why someone would like to down vote something like this without some kind of intention to troll you

by the way, you got yourself a follower

[jacquesvol]

@Vistial a poll here is too small to be significant

[markscott]

If you would like to do a sociological study on this, go ahead. It would be interesting. In the mean time, we can go by what has found to be accurate in the past, to the best of our knowledge, which is all we can do anyway. There is clear evidence, that throughout history, men have been the main protectors, and women the main nurturers, as best we know, and as best we define protector and nurturer.

[BlueCoyote]

@Harsh_5299
Thank you very much for your kind response! :-)

[BlueCoyote]

@markscott
So, if you think about your own social environment, is that rule always true? Because I can tell you that I know many people who don't fit into this rather simplistic formula.

[ladsin]

Try to hurt a woman's child and see if she's very nurturing.

[BleepRawrsaurus_Rex]

Or my dog if someone hurts my dog they’re done

[bente2]

Or anyoje I like, really. I’ve picked fights with people before because they hurt my friends.

[BirdFly]

That is just an another instinct. That doesn't mean they are not nurture.

[ladsin]

@BirdFly Is the question whether or not protection is a natural instinct?

[tsolluos]

I think that people would have to be ignorant to think that one gender would be any more one than the other as a single father I both nurture and protect my daughter as wood her mother

[That1tallguy]

That's what I was thinking it's the mama bear instinct in them lol

[coralee]

People don't fall into neat little categories like that. I know some pretty nurturing men and know many women who would do absolutely anything to protect their children. I think nurturing is a part of protecting and protecting is a part of nurturing. If a person is a good parent they are going to protect and nurture their children regardless of meaningless gender roles. I don't know anyone who I would consider a decent person whose first instinct isn't to protect a child.

[ShrewdRose]

I this comes down to an individual level rather than something that can be widely generalised. I'm not very nurturing at all, I have no idea how to deal with Children nor have any desire to be a Mother and to stay in a house all day cleaning and looking after others, I enjoy having a career. That's not to say I criticise any women who do though, raising Children is a job in its self, it's just not for me.

[ShrewdRose]

I think this comes down ^ damn phone.

[bente2]

But nurture does not mean nurture a child. It can mean nurturing your friends, your dog.. whatever.

[ShrewdRose]

I suppose I do enjoy a cuddle with my dogs but my friends seem to think I'm quite cold :P

[HidingMyHeart]

I can agree with that lol, It was just this morning that I noticed a couple small burns on my boyfriends face from his being splashed with mud during his night shift at the mill and instinctively I didn't hesitate to put some aloe vera ointment on him. I never thought of myself to be the nurturing type, I have always been so reserved but he and my kitties bring that side of me out

[RFW8A5U5F1]

Wow , such a selfless act. You can expect a call from the President any moment now.

[bente2]

@RFW8A5U5F1 yo dickhead, this was not about her being selfless but about her taking care of her boyfriend. Something your ass won’t have if you keep behaving so rudely.

[RFW8A5U5F1]

@bente2 Okay fatty. Are those your thighs or a cows?

[bente2]

@RFW8A5U5F1 do I look like I care about your dumb ass insults? My confidence is way up here, buddy. Yours is obviously not.

[RFW8A5U5F1]

For someone who is supposed to be 'confident' , you sure cry a lot.

[bente2]

@RFW8A5U5F1 lmao you make no sense.

[RFW8A5U5F1]

Losing weight will increase cognitive abilities.

[bente2]

@RFW8A5U5F1 stopping to be an asshole will increase the number of people that like you.

[MzAsh]

I’m as protective as I am nurturing.

[hellionthesagereborn]

Yes, men protect and that can be shown quite conclusively in the various studies on the topic. Same with nurturing for women. However just because men protect does not mean they do not nurture, we nurture differently then women do but its still nurturing. We prepare children for hardships, nurturing their risk taking abilities etc (this is why rough play is vital to a child's development, something they get almost exclusively from their fathers (or older males like uncles or brothers)). If you want you can think of it as women focus on the inner self, and males focus on the outer, women on personal feelings and well beings, males on ability and perserverance.

[jpmoore89]

Agree because its how we are built. Its ok to have differences. Both are important and the counterpart of the other. There is no "one is better" or him vs. her. Now both can do similar things and should at times but women and men naturally have a built in natural set of skills which is part of the gender. Being a guy, I'm thankful every day for the female gender because they add to life the other half of whats great and beautiful and yes, they are naturally nurturing and do a fine job at it if I must say.

[Isopsis]

True... partially... Women DO instinctively nurture and men DO instinctively protect. But men also have nurturing instincts and women have protecting instincts.
Gender roles or not, we need each other. Men protect AND nuture women while women nuture AND protect men. Both sexes nurturing and protecting the children and youth.
Granted our ways of protecting and nurturing might be different between the sexes, but both groups have both qualities hardwired into their systems. It isn't, at least to me, about gender roles or stereotypes reversing or "softening" men up etc. It's simply that, with all this technology and comfort we live in, we have more chances to see the less "traditional" side of things, even though it's always been there.

[tsolluos]

If you look at it that's a matter of perception all throughout time man has left woman at home to tend to the children while he went out to get things like wood in clothes and food to nurture his family while his wife was on hoping that she didn't need to protect her house and family from harm and nurture done while she was there but Shake somebody came in there she would instantly protect

[CharlieUnicorn]

Agree. if we are looking at macro population (1000 people or more).
If you're born with male sex, you typically innately have more masculine traits to go with (and vice versa).

That said, there's more differences between one man and a woman as individuals than their gender difference, which is why we shouldn't assume stuff about people we don't know or push anyone into an expected role.

We should as a society allow people to excel in what they can to contribute, irregardless of gender, but to expect 50/50 outcomes in life choices when free will is allowed is incredibly naive.
(trying to force these outcomes through discriminatory legislation is neo-marxist tyranny)

[Fap_pa_ap_pap_paper]

I think men and women are both. I see many men and women who conform to this state ment but also see many men look after their partners and children. I also belive the same is true for women they will protect their man if he needs it and will protect her children constantly.

[Fap_pa_ap_pap_paper]

Also other combinations of relationships. Also just looking after partners. Infact is protecting synonymous with nurturing, you if you nurture someone you are protecting them from illnesses etc?

[natrickk]

I'd say it's a little closer to: mother's instinctively nurture, and father's instinctively protect. In fact, both genders do both when they become parents.
I've found that the average man or woman that isn't a parent couldn't care less about either of those things.

[Anonymous]

It's not that men don't nurture, or that women don't protect. It's that men seem to more naturally take the lead in protection, and women seem to more naturally take the lead in nurturing. Of course, there are all kinds of variations. Biologically, men are larger and stronger, so they are more able to protect in some situations, and women breast feed, and it easily adapts to nurturing.

[annie616pop]

Superb answer! I believe the current field of socio-biology agrees with you.

[vannanas]

just think of the purely biological reasoning. men were the hunters and the women were foragers... hunting usually happens farther away from the tribe... so i guess women were generally more inclined to nurture and men to protect, this also appears in the biological difference in the genders, seen as men are more prone to sharp movements and women more prone to softer movement. soooo, biologacally i guess it makes sense

[jack187625]

We used to be herbivores, so your explanation doesn't make sense I'm afraid!

[vannanas]

@jack187625 we were omnivores... we ate what we came across... otherwise people wouldn't spread to tundras like Norway an such

[bente2]

@jack187625 have you ever taken a history class? Humans have always been hunter-gatherers.

[jack187625]

@bente2
You can just say history, you know?

And also

www.quora.com/During-the-course-of-evolution-have-herbivores-turned-into-carnivores-and-vice-versa

[vannanas]

@jack187625 I don't see the point of that link, what are you trying to say?

[jack187625]

Hominids used to be herbivores. So we haven't always been hunter gatherers

[vannanas]

@jack187625

veganbiologist.com/.../

www.forbes.com/.../

theethicalomnivoreblog.wordpress.com/.../

biology.stackexchange.com/.../what-makes-humans-omnivores-and-not-herbivores

www.quora.com/Are-humans-herbivores-or-omnivores

Read a little will you, omnivorous, we ate what we came across

[jack187625]

Read a little. That states we ARE omnivores. Not that we have always been.

The same way that Pandas used to be carnivorous. Humans USED to be herbivores.

[vannanas]

@jack187625
Lastly, our closest evolutionary relatives, the chimpanzees, are omnivores. The leading theory as to how humans evolved is that we became long-distance runners and hunted food by running it down until it tired, and that our access to meat and protein enabled our brains to evolve further than otherwise. So meat-eating is in our history as well as our DNA and physiology.

Homo sapiens

killed -- and ate -- Neanderthals. The idea is perhaps less shocking when one considers that primate meat is still regularly consumed by certain people. Cannibalism has occurred in human history but was usually a last resort during a famine. 

The bottom line is that, for better and worse, humans and those who came before will eat almost anything.

are you talking about being herbivores before we evolved into this species? but as far back as we can date, homo sapiens have consumed everything. other species closely related to us, maybe not...

[Jmcmanning]

I disagree. As a mom I am both nurturing and protecter of my child and SO. I don't want anything to happen to my family and friends and will do anything to take care - regardless of which method I need. I have known many males who carry both traits as well. think males tend to be known for the protector because of their strength and mental strength.

[WalterBlack]

Men and women both nurture and protect. Yes, I think nurturing is a slightly more prominent trait in women and protecting is slightly more prominent trait in men. But, i think it benefits the survival of the species for men and women to be instinctively capable of both.

[Jayden01]

This statement is not true as the roles of the genders is socialised into us through our Society's culture. If this was true then tribes like the Amazonian's where women are the protectors and men nurture would not exist

[bente2]

Very interesting point!

[Jayden01]

I've had to write papers on this for my coursework so I've learnt that our roles aren't always to nurture or protect and change depending on that Society's culture

[Obfuscate]

last i knew they were generally considered to be mythological, but i take i you don't believe so... given you have written papers on this, i was curious...

[pooper89]

That's a sweeping generalization but I think enough individuals fall into those categories that you could say it's generally true.
The instinct to protect though, isn't necessarily gender specific. Across the entire animal kingdom, most species' females will fiercely protect their young if provoked in the slightest. While males protect their harem, almost all males are typically more involved in dominance quarrels on a regular basis.

[NearlyNapping]

I agree. I think it's biology (i. e. instinctive and natural). It's just part of the natural world and applies to many species of animals.

For some reason humans think they are the exceptions in the natural world, and that somehow they get to pick and choose what they are. They are not the exceptions and don't get to pick and choose.

[Guanfei]

We can do both, but our instinct dictate that males protect, and females nurture, and it is our natural role.
But humans are past their natural roles. We went beyond and changed some of our behaviors to fit a more evolved and social society. Which doesn't mean our instinct doesn't play a role here, it's still there, just weaker.

[Porcelaine]

There's no change in gender roles. There not one gender only nurturing or only protecting. A lot of them disagree because if you care about someone you will both be nurturing and protective of them, no matter what gender.

[sadkat]

you'd be surprised how many woman lack the nurturing characteristic and how little men I've met who are protective. I actually had to teach my man to be protective and defensive of me sadly.

[Astoriana]

Everyone is capable of both behaviour. We are unfortunately living in a society that punishes the opposite behaviour from our assigned gender roles.

[SarahsSummer]

I agree.

[VIVANT]

Protecting is an intrinsic part of nurturing. Nurturing covers everything. And all sex are capable of it.

[9teen]

If you look both at the biological and the psychological aspect, it's not a statement, it's a fact.

[bosi11111]

No...

[mach1]

@bosi11111 it is.