This looks more like sexism dressed up as science, rather than science.
If the men really felt that they were in the body of a woman, then I would expect the overwhelming emotion to be gender dysphoria.
If not, then they answered whatever they felt they should. That’s a well-known problem in such studies (eg Social Desirability Bias). Maybe they answered what they felt the interviewer wanted to hear. Or maybe they just regurgitated sexist stereotypes. Imagine putting the avatar in a dirty kitchen and asking: Don’t you feel an overwhelming desire to clean?
But suppose that this is a good “empathy building” exercise. What is the take-away? Say, some years down the road, these men are hiring employees. There are qualified female candidates, but the job requires working at night, or maybe being alone with male clients. Hmm. Benevolent sexism is still sexism.
A couple of years ago I played VR paintball with my gf’s avatar without a mic and got to experience first hand what it feels like to be aggressively hit on. I didn’t want to play with a female avatar from there on.
But that was real. It didn’t artificially reify stereotypes of women being scared in subway stations at night. The take-away was simply that this stuff is annoying.
I thought of something: Anorexia. That condition where people, mainly young women, starve themselves to death. This is often claimed to be the result of unrealistic beauty standards in media. Women are also more often diagnosed with phobias. Why aren’t we talking more about a possible role for stereotypes here.
FWIW, I am very skeptical about the role of beauty standards in anorexia. Vague societal expectations seem a poor explanation for something as drastic as starving yourself to death, especially given how most people are overweight. But I am also sure that my behavior would be different in many ways, if I wasn’t expected to “man up”.
Your takeaway from my experience was that it was annoying? I felt attacked, vulnerable and defenseless, to say it was mere annoying is an underestimation you seem to make quite quickly. Since you are interested in anorexia I might recommend starting from the wikipedia article that lists the causes linked to it, which are numerous in addition to societal pressure.
Also, statistically most of them were heterosexual, and it seems obvious that most heterosexual men don’t want to be catcalled by other men. Homophobia etc.
This looks more like sexism dressed up as science, rather than science.
If the men really felt that they were in the body of a woman, then I would expect the overwhelming emotion to be gender dysphoria.
If not, then they answered whatever they felt they should. That’s a well-known problem in such studies (eg Social Desirability Bias). Maybe they answered what they felt the interviewer wanted to hear. Or maybe they just regurgitated sexist stereotypes. Imagine putting the avatar in a dirty kitchen and asking: Don’t you feel an overwhelming desire to clean?
But suppose that this is a good “empathy building” exercise. What is the take-away? Say, some years down the road, these men are hiring employees. There are qualified female candidates, but the job requires working at night, or maybe being alone with male clients. Hmm. Benevolent sexism is still sexism.
A couple of years ago I played VR paintball with my gf’s avatar without a mic and got to experience first hand what it feels like to be aggressively hit on. I didn’t want to play with a female avatar from there on.
But that was real. It didn’t artificially reify stereotypes of women being scared in subway stations at night. The take-away was simply that this stuff is annoying.
I thought of something: Anorexia. That condition where people, mainly young women, starve themselves to death. This is often claimed to be the result of unrealistic beauty standards in media. Women are also more often diagnosed with phobias. Why aren’t we talking more about a possible role for stereotypes here.
FWIW, I am very skeptical about the role of beauty standards in anorexia. Vague societal expectations seem a poor explanation for something as drastic as starving yourself to death, especially given how most people are overweight. But I am also sure that my behavior would be different in many ways, if I wasn’t expected to “man up”.
Your takeaway from my experience was that it was annoying? I felt attacked, vulnerable and defenseless, to say it was mere annoying is an underestimation you seem to make quite quickly. Since you are interested in anorexia I might recommend starting from the wikipedia article that lists the causes linked to it, which are numerous in addition to societal pressure.
What made it so bad?
Also, statistically most of them were heterosexual, and it seems obvious that most heterosexual men don’t want to be catcalled by other men. Homophobia etc.