Gender and Socialisation Messages in Zoos

On this blog I must have displayed examples of gender studies trying to shit on everything I love. Well now it's the turn of this zoology student to come face to face with a paper that criticises zoos from a gender based perspective. Even the title alone is enough to royally trigger me, but just wait till you see the findings of these prestigious academics. You really have to wonder if the sole purpose of gender studies is to claim everything I love in this world is sexist.
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http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/0190272516656620?etoc=
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Oh no, we're only a few lines in and already we're inundated with sweeping statements backed up with zero evidence. I must say I'm completely shocked to find this sort of poor argument in a social studies paper. In case you haven't worked it out yet this paper is attempting to explain how gender stereotypes manifest themselves in society through the use of observed behaviour in zoological parks. The central theme here is that gender cannot be explained through natural processes, and bigoted parents use animals displayed in zoos to indoctrinate children into thinking patriarchal gender norms are universal. I just can't imagine why gender would be associated with biological sex. Is it possibly to do with the vast majority of the world's population identifying as the biological sex they were born with. Jesus that's an alarming level of correlation isn't it. It's almost like these hegemonic ideas of masculinity and femininity are based off of biology. But don't trouble yourself by supplying biological sources to discuss this gender association nonsense, because I'm sure using sociological studies is far more reliable when referring to anatomical sex differences.

We can easily highlight the flaws in using sociology to understand biological sex differences. Take the Carrigan, Connell and Lee study sourced by this paper. Their paper is complete nonsense and has no bearing in modern science. After all the paper is from 1985, but even scientists at that time were aware that clear cut categories between sexes are universally found in sexually reproducing organisms. Sexual dimorphism isn't precautionary, and in fact aids in describing these clear cut differences that these sociological studies blatantly ignore. You can claim human sociality transcends biological determinism, but what is human society if not a product of biology in the first place? You can't cheat the system of nature when you're playing by its very rules. These models of masculinity and femininity are based in nature, and are not a facade, representing the natural division between the sexes. I'm sorry if these people don't agree with that idea, but it's the fucking truth, and no amount of denying biology is going to change that.

What these researchers don't clock on to is the idea that these differing attitudes to gender exist for a reason. It's not some institutionalised conspiracy that aims to suppress certain characteristics, but rather a reflection of human biology. Furthermore there is no evidence presented that socialising children to standard gender norms is actually damaging. You can easily socialise a child to behave in the way these virtuous souls would want, but why would this be beneficial over traditional gender norms? I would argue suppressing the truth from these kids is far more harmful than merely offending a few gender studies professors.

You can argue all you want that socialisation messages are more pronounced in zoos, but you have no fucking evidence that this is in any way true, which is quite a major flaw in your study. Actually 'zoos' plural is an overstatement, considering this survey took place at ONE zoo. How fucking unreliable is your conclusion going to be if your trying to represent the data from one institution as a global generalisation? There's so many critical fucking variables you can't control here. You can't identify differences in culture, which is a fucking huge variable in this study. You can't control for the changes in these nature inspired environments, which again is a fucking huge element of your study. And of course being as this is such a pitifully small study you can't control for anomalous results. Quite honestly this hopeless study has zero chance of producing anything meaningful thanks to your idiotic methods. Still, I'm sure you can hide these humongous flaws with pages of tedious bullshit.

Somehow they did manage to draw up some conclusions, but as you would expect they're not exactly profound. The paper concludes with three big generalisations, which I'm sure accurately portrays the range of behaviours sampled by their pitiful methods. It's not as if these three scenarios are any good either. It's not exactly revolutionary to declare that humans anthropomorphise animals. However this fact doesn't automatically validate the next two conclusions, which all revolve around the idea that adults are purposely forcing gender roles to be ruthlessly impounded on children when observing animals. Anthropomorphism and forcing gender roles on children are two separate things entirely, and one cannot be used to prove the existence of the other. This is circular reasoning at its very worst.

I find it incredibly hard to believe that there was such a profound distinction between the parenting of different genders. I'm not denying that parents tend to differ their attitudes towards different genders, but the way this study makes it sound is as if all girls are universally oppressed by the behaviour of their parents. In my personal opinion I feel these individuals are demonising common sense in favour of promoting ideological rhetoric. In other words this is building up to be a shameful study. We still haven't even delved into the explanations of how zoos allegedly naturalise these gender differences.

This section of the paper presents the idea that the world of media reinforces stereotypes relating to animals, with these stereotypes being considered unanimously negative without qualification. It's here the study relates these supposed issues to zoological institutes, or institutes of patriarchal oppression as these researchers would have you believe. For some reason zoos are said to be significant because they're artificial simulations of the natural world, although I really don't understand how they can reflect the whole global biosphere. I'm also confused as to how the ecological relationship between differing organisms causes socialisation, as the only explanation this paper can give is that zoos give out 'symbolic power', which is something I would expect charlatans to say. Zoos house animals from all over the planet, often faithfully recreating their natural environment for both immersion and the benefit of the animal on display, but under no circumstances does this equate to an accurate representation of the global biosphere. Under this logic you could have just observed how people interact with pigeons in the street. You just wanted a day out at the zoo and had to come up with some excuse to get funding for your excursions.

I'm honestly intrigued by this mystical symbolic power that humans can draw on to reinforce gender stereotypes. I think they're just confusing witchcraft and wizardry with animals behaving naturally. It certainly seems there's this overarching tone condemning animals for daring to follow gender stereotypes, with their sexist powers allowing parents to oppress their kids. I thought it would be perfectly logical to assume that humans try and relate to the vastly different animals on display in zoos by giving them stereotypical personalities. I'm sorry that most parents don't come up with a story surrounding Timmy the transgender tortoise, but that doesn't mean these stereotypical characters are indoctrinating these children into becoming patriarchal monsters. Why is creating stereotypical characters a bad thing? More importantly how is this a behaviour that can be prevented? The majority of people who visit zoos aren't experts on sexual morphology or the cognitive output of these animals, such as yourselves, so why wouldn't parents try and relate to the exhibits by adhering to stereotypes? This isn't mythmaking, it's trying to relay educational information to children. You try giving one of your bullshit gender studies lectures to a child and they'll be bored solid, but show it a chimp that looks like daddy and you've made a memorable encounter.

I hate the tone this study takes that being an average parent is inherently evil. How dare you try and educate your children, or try and allow them to show some interest. No, instead you must forcefully digest this gender fluid bullshit, because that's going to be truly beneficial. The kid might grow up scientifically illiterate, but hey at least they won't be a transphobic pig. The study then goes on to explain why zoos exemplify these alleged issues, coming up with some questionable conclusions.

It says a lot about the intelligence of these researchers when they have to be trained in observing families. What do you have to learn? How to not look like a nonce? Honestly this methodology is fucking terrible. It's like the level of experimentation I would expect from a high school student, not an academic paper. Funnily enough this shit study produced some amazingly insightful findings. Any single comment any parent made in relation to the sex of the animal is instantly demonised as if it's some sort of curse word. If you dare to compare sex differences in humans to that of other animals you're instantly branded a vile sexist believing in false ideologies. To any individual not versed in zoology sexing animals without comparing to humans is a difficult task, so I think it's incredibly harsh to criticise these said adults for trying to educate their children in relation to terms they would understand. I'm someone whose studied sexual selection at a world leading institution, which doesn't sound arrogant at all, so it makes perfect sense to me that male peafowls exhibit brighter patterns than the opposite sex, but I would never try and deter someone from simplifying this advanced biology to their children. Peafowls actually follow a trend found in a vast number of species where the males tend to exhibit brighter colouration, although the individual mechanisms behind these ornamental features are still heavily debated. All you've brought to this debate is a huge pile of manure that aims to silence any serious biological enquiry. Male ornamentation has nothing to do with gender roles, so doesn't at all prove any rule relating to these gender stereotypes. Ignorance I can tolerate from children, but it's fucking insulting from so called academics.

These idiots expect any guest of a zoo to be instant experts, and before making a comment towards their child any parent must know everything about the sex of animals and their relatedness. I actually thought the observations made by guests were pretty good, considering that otters live in social groups formed around relatedness, and male gorillas are far larger than female gorillas. What you're proving here is that socialisation messages lead to accurate stereotypes forming. I find it insultingly hypocritical that a paper of this low quality has the audacity to criticise others for making assumptions when the only arguments they can produce are littered with them. I can assure you that these uneducated guests make far more accurate assumptions than these supposed academics. Maybe it would be beneficial to these researchers if they assigned nice little back stories to help them understand biological concepts, because it's clear they haven't grasped the purpose of zoological institutes or the role of sex in animals.

Later on these morons criticise an innocent joke, a mother making an accurate comparison between her parenting and that of an orangutan, and an innocent story. I get the impression these researchers haven't got their heads around the idea that people go to the zoo for fun, not a fucking gender studies lecture. That's not the only crime these transphobic adults have committed. Oh no, just look what other heinous crimes these astute researchers intelligently discovered.

Jesus Christ we need to ban all zoos. Not only are kids being indoctrinated, but animals are now being appropriated by these vile places. I doubt animals give a shit about being appropriated, and may have larger issues to care about, such as being globally massacred in levels never seen before in the history of the planet. Maybe if appropriating was such a big issue you could have at least bothered to find a source to back up these monstrous generalisations.

The only evidence presented in these segments is more harmless stories from caring parents. I just can't comprehend how a woman commenting on how she finds a bird attractive is transmitting gender norms. Maybe she likes the bird because it's fucking attractive, and has nothing to do with the fact she's also a woman. If anyone is guilty of stereotyping gender it's these researchers. Just because one woman said something in a random zoo doesn't mean its a global trend. I get that zoos are supposed to be this representation of a whole planet, but I get the feeling you only claim this so your results are given some false significance. At its foundations this study is purely supported through anecdotal evidence, which even for a social studies paper is fucking pathetic. 35 instances is a shockingly poor sample number to make this radical conclusion. That's also 35 instances over many surveyed hours, which indicates this behaviour is stochastic and not fucking ingrained. I get the feeling you're purposely manipulating the results by eliminating the context to try and artificially force significance into your meaningless survey. What still confuses me with this study is how they can conclude that gender is some complicated mess that doesn't follow a binary by literally collecting evidence that shows a dichotomy in attitudes towards animals. I'm sure these researchers would claim this is solely because of social manipulation, and not the more sensible conclusion that biological differences are at play.

Hang on, you're now providing anecdotal evidence that men aren't bound by toxic masculinity and an internal desire for violence, which is funny as I'm sure you claimed sensitivity was inherently feminine about a minute ago. That's not following these gender stereotypes that are, you know, the only weak foundation holding this argument in place. I'm still shocked that they can determine all this information with such a shockingly poor sample. Surely if only 17 men applauded strength then countless other men didn't. Why then wouldn't you accept the null hypothesis that all of this is completely trivial? Oh yes, the null hypothesis doesn't pander to your agenda.

In absence of any real statistical analysis we're repetitively subjected to these pointless anecdotes that don't serve to prove anything. They're just waffle that clogs up the study. However that story with the tiger is particularly amusing to read. The conclusion these idiots actually suggest is that the mother forced the child away from the scene to transmit gender norms onto the child, and not the idea that the child is reveling over a bird's carcass being torn to shreds. She's not transmitting stereotypes, she's being a fucking parent. All throughout this study I was waiting for the penny to drop and for these researchers to realise they're just being judgmental assholes. I can't imagine why all these parents would teach their children that gender differences are based in nature. How dare they teach these children factual information? I'd say adhering to stereotypes is nowhere near as bad as twisting this fucking narrative. Stop spurting out this weird conspiracy shit that you can't back up with evidence.

The next section is about the difference between disciplining boys and girls, which is apparently possible to determine within the confines of a fucking zoo. I honesty can't be assed to analyse it all because it's just the same rhetoric repeated over and over again, with some ridiculous generalisations thrown in for good measure. What a shame these academics haven't learnt the critical skill of making scientific papers succinct. Let's just move swiftly on to the 'discussion'.

Yes you read that correctly, animals interacting with their artificial environment literally naturalises gender ideologies. The word 'literally' there being misused in probably the most offensive way I can possibly imagine. Maybe if animals interacting with their environment causes gender norms then that would suggest these norms are natural, which is contrary to what's claimed in this study. The only evidence you have against this is from these three instances, which as I've already explained are completely meaningless.

The researchers do at least have the brainpower to identify that someone with any common sense might have an issue with the conclusions presented by this study, and they've countered this with yet more anecdotal evidence with no sources for backup. Unfortunately extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence to be in any way valid, and whatever ethnographic observations you've found does not constitute as solid evidence in any way. What are ethnographic observations for that matter? My vote would be on some totally trivial and subjective.

The researchers decided that because some observed individuals went against the norm, which is completely expected as we're discussing human behaviour, biology cannot be used to explain what was observed and that we should believe in the power of socialisation instead. So in other words because some girls like violence and some boys like attractive and cute animals it's not conceivable that gender roles are determined by nature. We'll suddenly ignore the trends we've been banging on about constantly, because apparently biologically determined behaviour cannot possibly show any form of variation. I literally cannot see any flaws in this watertight conclusion. Just a stunning and insightful piece in every aspect, and we're not even finished. Fantastic.

Can't imagine why there's an appeal towards natural explanations of gender expression, and not the surrendering of logic to your alternative nonsense. Surprisingly it turns out that it's not biologists who can explain the role of biology in gender expression, but sociologists instead. How am I supposed to follow this logic when these said sociologists make scientifically illiterate points such as the one found in that 2007 Jackson and Rees study? Here's a direct quote from that equally shit study: 'We genuinely do not know whether human behaviour and culture are the products of evolutionary selective pressure, although we find it unlikely.' I'm sorry to say we absolutely do know whether behaviour is effected by selection pressures, as not only is behaviour heritable, but it's determined by biological systems comprised of genomes, and has a direct effect on the likelihood of reproduction. Are you seriously telling me that an inherent fear of tigers or lions is fucking socialised? You don't even need to be an evolutionary biology professor to work this one out, and all you need to do is observe how human behaviour has diverged from other apes. If you find a biological explanation unlikely then you're a science denier, it's that straight forward. It baffles me that these sociologists count complete bullshit as credible evidence.

Nature is not a social construct full stop. Human's are merely a component of nature, and must abide by its principles. That's why nature has this collective meaning, and not whatever horseshit you lot are proclaiming. This study has provided nothing to support the idea that zoos are this magical wonderland that hold the keys to understanding gender norms, simply because they artificially blur boundaries between nature and urban life. Of course urban life is also part of nature, but in all honesty that's the least of the shortcomings displayed here. The study even admits to having little evidence that these transmitted gender norms are of any significance, although really that sentence should incorporate the term 'zero evidence'. Quite frankly that whole paragraph could just be rephrased as 'we're fucking shit and should stop wasting academic funding on trips to the zoo.' The final line essentially amounts to 'we shouldn't be making generalisations like we have been throughout the whole study because we can't even find significance in individual scenarios.'

Eleven pages of complete shit and we finally arrive at some sort of conclusion. It's not a conclusion at all actually and strangely doesn't describe how this paper fits into the academic sphere, or how it puts their findings into any sort of context. I mean it doesn't actually fit into any academic sphere, but you would of thought they would bullshit their way out of that like they have for everything else. This paragraph however is more a biased literature review, which indicates very poor focus. What I cannot stand is this assumption that gendered behaviour is inherently the biggest evil on the planet. Please tell me what fucking harm these parents are doing by stereotyping animals they see to make them interesting to their children. There just isn't some global conspiracy where adults are trying to turn their children into clones, and there is certainly no fucking evidence that zoos have this sudden hypnotic effect on parents to become patriarchal scum. This is simply case studies of parents trying to teach their progeny, or at least try and allow their children to enjoy themselves.

I love the comment that the behaviour of children may be different in opera houses and libraries. No fucking shit. That doesn't take a fucking academic paper to work out. I think it's becoming clear that these researchers do not have kids, which makes sense, as who would want to procreate with a social scientist that comes out with shit like this? Maybe, and here's a fucking wild suggestion, zoos are a good place to observe adults discussing natural roles of sex because that's what's displayed in these animals. You can't make the argument that animals are in on this global conspiracy, as they have no concept of what gender is. And no, you absolutely cannot hold animals accountable for their natural sex roles.

Just when you thought it couldn't get any worse THIS PAPER WON AN AWARD. I imagine it's not a prestigious one if this pile of shit was anywhere close to winning, but it's still an indication that people think this pile of manure deserves credit. It doesn't deserve a shred of credit, and the author of this paper appears to be about twelve in that photo, which I suppose makes sense when she writes like a fucking twelve year old. This is a personal message to social scientists: Please stop promoting shit like this. Not only does it discredit your discipline, but it clogs up the sciences with ideological bullshit. Please quit it with the idea that gender has no basis in nature, and the idea that everyone who disagrees with this statement is an offensive bigot. I personally refuse to be called a transphobic liar by this idiotic study, and the quicker people call this kind of shit out as pseudoscience the better for academia.