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Harold Eia - Brainwash (1/7) The Gender Equality Paradox
Can I ask you a few questions? This is not a joke!
No, thanks - Thanks...
It's a serious program. - I doubt that when I see you.
What is this being used for?
I'll go over there instead.
What country has the most equality? - I don't know.
Brainwash
What will I do in the future?
This was for the boys.
The kitchen is Norway's biggest workplace.
A bit of sleep will do fine.
We have accepted that the gender differences does not lie in the mind.
Women aren't as one-track minded.
Women are from Mars, men from Venus. Or was it the opposite?
Characteristics of women and characteristics of men.
More and more women study medicine. - We've got a long way to go!
Young people's choices are more traditional now than 15 years ago.
It's a paradox, isn't it?
It's strange. - It's a mystery.
I'm thinking: "If I only could explain the reason..."
The Gender Equality Paradox
This is me. And this is my male baldness pattern.
Usually I'm here with Baard and Atle making up jokes.
But today I'm going to find out of things. Try to understand the society.
Norway was chosen as the country with the most gender equality in 2008.
Norwegian women have gone from being housewifes
to become teachers, doctors, lawyers...
I might seem strict... - Party leaders...
We have to make the right choices! - And prime ministers.
Or janitors. - I'm the janitor here!
Are you the janitor? You're a woman and they don't know that stuff!
But there are a few things that just seem right in "equal" Norway.
I thought we were at the point where everyone could do what they want.
Therefore there are women and men in all professions. But it's not so.
Let's first visit a company where most of the employees are men.
Where are the engineers now? - I think they're in the cafeteria.
What's the percent of female engineers in this company?
10 percent. - It's mostly male engineers here.
Will it ever become fifty-fifty? - I doubt it.
Construction is a male thing. - What do you mean by that?
You get dirty... To build up and knock down... That's a male thing.
It sounds old-fashioned to me that male and female stuff still exists.
Asker and Baerum Hospital But let's go to a place where they do so-called female things.
Is it the lunch room? - Yes. Welcome!
Hi! Are there no men here? - No.
Unless you define yourself as a man.
But there are no male nurses here? - No. We've had them before.
But they're here for very short periods.
The genders in the world's most equal country still don't share jobs.
A report states that almost 90% of all nurses in Norway are female,
but only 10% of all engineers are. It's been this way since the 80s.
"The division of gender in the workplace is astoudingly stable."
It's called "The Norwegian gender equality paradox."
The government has for years tried to recruit male nurses
and female engineers.
Kristin Mile was the Equal Opportunities Commissioner.
She says these measures didn't change things.
You get a one- or two-year effect. And then it falls again.
So what's the reason? Let's first exclude some explanations.
It's not discrimination? - No, it's not that.
Former cabinet minister Huitfeldt says girls do better in school.
Girls do better in all courses except physical education.
So why do so few women want to work as engineers or in technical fields?
It seems boring. - But working with computers, systems.
It's a professional challenge.
But it's not as exciting as working with people and talking.
Do girls generally find technical stuff boring?
Here's one who has asked 15-year-olds all over the World
what they want to learn more about.
Hello! This was nice! Wow, you're so tanned.
University of Oslo wants to know why few girls study scientific subjects.
Camilla Schreiner has done an inquiry in 20 countries.
Girls in less egalitarian countries are more interested
in technical subjects than Norwegian girls.
I thought if the society was equal, the genders got the same interests.
In this part of the inquiry, there are 108 questions.
None of them shows the pattern you describe.
None show that the more modern a country is,
the more similar the genders' interests are.
The more modern a country is the less girls are into technical stuff.
Yes. It's good that you take notes. - Yes, that's important.
Why are girls in our country of equality
so disinterested in technical subjects?
It's always been the woman's job to take care of the children.
The society and cultural infuence is one of the explanations offered.
Others think the reason is even more basic.
I think it's in the genes.
Girls and boys are born different? - Yes, I'm sure.
There are gender differences. We aren't more alike than what we are.
It's in us.
The other view is that the genders are born with different interests.
Is this about something within us?
You often read that men and women have different brains.
Could there be innate differences that can explain
why men and women work with different things?
I visit Cathrine Egeland at the Work Research Institute.
She has written several reports on the genders' choice of professions.
In popular science you read that male and female brain is different.
What do you think of that?
I don't know if there's any truth in that.
It's striking how interested people are in finding those differences.
But you aren't. - No. Very little interested in that.
So it's not relevant studying brain differences
to understand why men more often become engineers?
No, I don't think so. Or no...
Hello! A firm handshake.
The detective work leads me to gender researcher Joergen Lorentzen
at the Center of Interdisciplinary Gender Research at Oslo University.
Studies say that the male and female brain is different. What do you say?
I think that's old-fashioned research.
Most of that kind of research have been refuted in later studies.
Most people nowadays don't say that our brains are different.
So the difference is just the genitalia?
***, hair, height and a few other things.
But everything outside of that is the same.
Feelings, interests... - Yes.
Inteligence, capacity... That's basically identical.
Norwegian researchers don't think innate gender differences
are relevant in understanding why genders have different interests.
But if we're born equal, what about Schreiner's inquiry?
It shows that the gender roles still are deeply rooted among the young.
He says children absorb the expectations for boys and girls.
We treat girls and boys differently from the very start.
There are studies where you dress the girl in blue and the boy in pink.
People go to the girl and say: "You're so cute..."
They do? - From the colour, yes.
Martine Aurdal - Columnist in Dagbladet - A baby is there with a pink blanket. Grown-ups come and say:
"What a beautiful princess! What a nice baby."
If the baby has a blue blanket, they say: "What a tough little guy..."
"You're going to be a strapping lad."
Is it that way still? - Yes!
Yes. It's probably so, even if we think we treat all babies equal.
But how was I treated?
This is where I grew up. This is Heggebaerstien.
There is mom. Hi!
Hi! Nice of you to come. Come in!
When I was small, did you say: "What a tough and strapping lad!"?
No, I never said that. That little bundle...
I never said that. - Was I tough?
I didn't think of you as that.
And I don't feel I treat my girls differently because they are girls.
What gender are you? Girls or boys? I don't remember.
Dad! - We are girls.
I'm not concerned with what gender people are, just who they are.
But I'm a girl! - Most feel they treat people equal.
Yes. What I'm trying to say, is that without it being explicitly said,
it could be that we sill expect different things for girls and boys.
And accordingly treat them different. Without thinking of it.
We don't think about it. And then we influence them.
The influence is not just from parents.
Just go into a toy store.
See what the toy store feels girls and boys should want.
The toy industry has given children an obvious notion
of what is toys for girls and toys for boys.
Do you like this one? - It's for girls.
What about that one? - It's for girls.
That one. - Was that one nice?
What does he like to play with?
Balls and cars.
It's not just the toy industry. The environment affects us constantly.
This confirms the male role. Males see a figure like this digging.
The women think that they can't do those things. Constant infuences.
If girls and boys were treated equal from the start,
do you think they would develop similar interests?
Yes, that's the implication of what I'm saying.
If girls and boys are met with equal expectations,
the difference in interests would also disappear.
Is this so mouldable that there are societies where the opposite is true?
I feel that this is almost the basic theorem.
We are, as you say, mouldable. there are no limits to what humans can do
in relation to what's important. And that is behavior and emotionality.
Bjoerg, Randi and Signe are welders at Rosenberg Shipyards.
Of course, men and women can do anything, if they really want to.
But are there cultures where women want to work with technical things
and men want to work with people.
No-one has managed to compare all cultures.
But Richard Lippa, professor in psychology, has, with the BBC,
conducted an enormous survey on the Internet.
I decide to meet Mr. Lippa.
But can a British-American survey shed light on
the Norwegian equality paradox?
Lorentzen was sceptical to this kind of research.
It's a funny study... You're laughing as I say the word "study".
You are drowning in studies... - I get telephones from every media
when they get these American studies. They're often American.
Are Americans especially good? - No, especially poor, I would say.
Or especially speculative. Or that it's especially many doing research.
Yes, there are lots of odd studies in the USA.
But I've still decided to give the Americans a chance.
Hello! - Hello
You're professor Lippa. - Good to meet you.
I'm very happy to be here. I wanna hear about your huge survey...
OK. Well, my office is right down here.
It's common that surveys have a few thousand respondents.
But Lippa has gotten answers from over 200,000 in 53 countries.
From Europe, the Americas, Africa and Asia.
They were all asked what they wanted to work with. And what did he find?
There's a big difference.
Men are much more interested in a thing-oriented occupations.
Things like being an engineer or mechanic.
Women, relatively, are much more interested in people-oriented occupations.
Could a reason for this pattern be that women all over the world are...you know...
They are encouraged to... "You're a woman... You ought to comunicate, to talk, to be social?"
That's possible and certainly there's some thruth to that.
But you would expect that it changes somewhat across countries.
If cultures were big influence on this.
It was absolutely consistent across the 53 nations.
In other words: That was every bit as strong in Norway
as it was in Saudi Arabia or Pakistan or India or Singapur or Malaysia.
It was just: That's a big difference between men and women.
And it seems to be a big difference in all the 53 nations.
What does Lippa think the reasons are for these cross-cultural differences?
When you see a result like that where two lines are pretty flat
and do not change across countries.
That gives you a hint that something biological is going on here.
Could there be a biological element here?
Lippa's studies suggest that there are innate differences.
But it's not a proof.
You know, as scientists we never believe something based on one study or one kind of result.
You kind of look at the pattern of results.
One way you can try to answer the biology question is: "Does it occur early in development?"
Aaaah...
How early can you spot differences in interest between girls and boys?
Most of us notice that girls and boys play with different things.
Professor Trond Diseth at the National Hospital has studied this.
he has developed a test to see if there are early gender differences.
Harald Eia, welcome to the Section for Child Psychiatry.
Trond Diseth is a professor and medical director for this department.
He works with chidren born with deformed genitals.
In the process of determining the gender he uses a play test.
We've defined 10 different toys.
Four feminine toys.
Four toys defined as masculine.
And then there are the so-called neutral toys.
These 10 toys are placed in a pattern.
Then we videotape it.
We observe children touching the toys.
We see clear differences between healthy girls and boys
from the age of nine months.
Boys choose masculine toys.
Girls choose feminine toys.
That girls and boys want different toys this early
could be a result of already being influenced by gender roles.
Diseth doesn't believe so.
Children are born with a clear biological disposition.
As far as gender, identity and behavior.
And then the environment, expectations and values around us
either enhance or tone down that.
Society can push this a bit, but only so far.
Yes. Not decisive in changing
the inherent identity and disposition for gender behavior.
I show Diseth parts of the interview with Lorentzen.
In spite of technical problems Diseth hears Lorentzen's statements.
I have to hold it to my ear. The sound is bad.
What do you think of studies that say male and female brains are different?
I think it's old-fashioned research.
Most of this research has been refuted.
Most people nowadays don't say that our brains are different.
Yes. - He says it's old-fashioned.
Are you doing old-fashioned research?
I hear he says that and I would strongly reject that.
I have lots of studies and publications that are very recent.
From this year, and from 2008, 2007 and 2006.
It has a totally different and clear message.
It's not old-fashioned, it's cutting-edge research.
This is word against word. And Diseth didn't show me any proof.
But are there even earlier signs of gender differences?
Simon Baron-Cohen is a British professor of psychiatry.
He has done some groundbreaking experiments on newborn children.
To talk to him I have to go where my parents couldn't afford to send me.
To Cambridge and the legendary and distinguished Trinity College.
It was founded in 1546 and has won 32 Nobel Prizes.
Isaac Newton and Ludwig Wittgenstein belonged to Trinity College.
This is a British research and science at its best.
Excuse me, is this Trinity College? - Yes
I'll use the entrance for the common people.
It's nice here. But I think it's nicer at Blindern.
Simon Baron-Cohen is an expert on autism.
Coincidentally he has discovered important differences in gender
from the very birth.
What's especially fun for me with professor Baron-Cohen
is that he's the cousin of Sacha Baron Cohen.
He plays Borat and Ali G and Bruno.
I'm Bruno!
They're a talented family. Both good at comedy and science.
Hello! - Hi!
Nice to meet you - Sorry I haven't been very kind.
Sorry to keep you waiting. - No, no problem.
I notice the professor hasn't learned much about TV from his cousin.
Do I look at you? Is that right? - Yeah
Ignore the camera. - Yeah, yeah
Unless you wanna be the host of the show.
It's tempting, yeah,
to take over the whole thing. - I got it, OK.
I ask him to tell me about the experiment he did on newborn babies.
We looked at babies who were one day old.
And again we presented them either with a mechanical object or a face to look at.
And filmed how long does the baby look at each of there two objects.
And we found that more boys looked longer at the mechanical object.
And more girls looked longer at the face.
Even on the first day of life.
So, this is before toys have been introduced
or various cultural biases or prejudices have been introduced.
Baron-Cohen's findings suggest that these differences are created
before the children are born. In the womb.
What we know is that boys and girls are producing different amounts of hormones.
Particulary testosterone.
Boys are producing twice as much testosterone as girls.
And this hormone testosterone influences the way the brain develops.
How does he know that it's testosterone level that creates this?
We measured the testosterone when the baby is in the womb.
And we've waited till the child is born.
And we've looked at their behavior.
What we found was that the higher the child's testosterone prenataly
the slower they are to develop language when they are a small child,
the less eye contact they make, again, at the age of one or two years old.
So, the more testosterone is associated with slower language development
and slower social development.
So many differences are the result of dissimilar testosterone levels.
But what happens when a fetus of a girl receives too much testosterone?
It's a genetic condition where you produce too much testosterone.
And girls with this condition show a very masculine pattern of toy preferences.
The testosterone level gives us early different interests and qualities.
But does the effect last?
We followed these children. They are now about eight years old.
So we were interested to see how they are turning out.
And what we find is that as they get older the children who had higher testosterone
have more difficulties with empathy, with recognizing other people's emotions or taking somebody else's perspective.
But they also have a much stronger interest in systems, in understanding how things work.
So, even if you ignore what sex somebody is and just look at their hormone levels you can predict their pattern of interests.
It seems that differences in hormone levels create the differences we see.
The levels are guided by different genes on the X- and Y-chromosome.
But why are there these genetic differences?
Where are these different genes from?
To find the answer we must go back in time to the dawn of humans.
NRK can't afford to send me back in time.
But they can afford to send me to professor Anne Campbell.
She works in Durham in Northern England.
She can tell us something about why we have the genes we have.
Campbell is an evolutionary psychologist.
She studies how our body and psyche is infuenced by evolution.
How do you do? Hi Harold! - I'm Harold, yeah! - Come in.
I've been eating garlic, so, if I get too close just slap me in the face.
Scream - Yeah, scream!
She's a researcher and has researched my original occupation.
So is it hard not to be funny? - No!
You just go into a different frame of mind... - Absolutely
I mean, are there any comedians that are funny all the time?
I hope not - No
Campbell understands the human being according to Chales Darwin's theory.
That our traits are a result of a long process of selection.
The key to all this is how many descendants you leave behind you.
And any traits that increase the number of descendants
you leave behind you will tend to stay in the gene pool.
So that's what selecting in particular traits both in males and in females.
So why has evolution made females and males different?
If women are generaly the ones who give birth, that lactate, that raise children
it would be very surprising if there wasn't some kind of psychological orchestration
that helped women achieve those tasks
and made those kinds of tasks particulary pleasurable to women.
So things like empathy in women.
Things like avoiding dangerous confrontations where you may be hurt or injured.
Things like avoiding social exclusion - being pushed out of the group.
All of those are good things.
All of those mean that you are more likely to survive
and to reproduce and to leave children who themselves also reproduce.
According to Campbell that's why today's women
are more oriented towards other people than men.
We know from many psychology studies:
One of the biggest sex differences is that if you put people under stress,
for example if you say to them:
"In about half an hour we're going to be givin' you some quite painful electric shocks."
"We're getting all the equipment ready. So you'll have to wait."
"Would you like to wait by yourself or would you like to wait with someone else?"
Women will chose to be with other people.
Men typicaly under stress choose to be alone. They don't want to be with others.
Everyone is still infuenced by genes thousands of years old.
That's why women have entered nursing, medicine, social work, teaching...
All these kind of areas are areas of cooperative exchange.
Where women seem to feel most at home, most comfortable.
Of course, there are big overlaps between the sexes. Huge overlaps.
There were women that were extremely gifted in engineering, physics, chemistry and so on.
But in a sense that's less typical, I would say, of female interest than it is of male interest.
I'm thinking that evolution is important, but today's differences
must be explained by our different treatment of girls and boys.
Now, we know that sex differences in some areas are really quite large.
So, I just find it hard to believe that a very very subtle difference
in a tone of voice you use or how long you make eye contact or something like that
could really have such a profound effect on the interests, activities and preferences that children show.
Time to summarize. Can those that say that there are inherent differences
between girls and boys that give them their interests be right?
I feel that there are a few things pointing in that direction.
But if the gender difference lie in the genes and the hormones,
why do girls in countries with less equality want to study technology?
It's an interesting thing.
But the more you free people in society, the more you open oportunities for people to do anything they want
the more likely it is that any kind of genetic predisposition they have will be bale to expres itself.
In the gender egalitarian countries like Norway you really are free to follow your inclinations.
In a poor country you're probably worried just about getting a job.
You just want a job.
If it's computers that are gonna get you that job, in India for example,
you'll go for it, even if you're a woman.
In gender egalitarian countries - North America and Europe,
I think people feel freer just to pursue what they're truly interested in.
And my point is: Men and women are interested in somewhat different things.
Maybe this is the solution to the equality paradox.
In a free and equal society men and women will become unequal.
Because they have the opportunity to cultivate their particular interests.
Before I go home I wonder how Campbell will react to Lorentzen.
So the difference is just the genitalia?
Everything not concerning the reproductive organs...
Everything apart from that. There's hair, *** and a few other things.
But there is no difference in anything apart from that.
Feelings, interests... - Yes.
Inteligence, capacity... It's basically the same.
Amazing...
Amazing? - Absolutely amazing.
I'm astonished that someone could say that.
I guess the question I would pose is: Where do bodily differences come from?
Where do the differences between men and women's reproductive systems come from?
Evolution, I'm sure, would be the answer that most social scientists would give.
And what orchestrates those bodily differences?
What is responsible for the production of hormones and peptides
that keep everything going?
The human brain mostly through feedback systems.
It seems to me quite extraordinary that you could imagine
that evolution has operated on the reproductive systems
and has had absolutely no effect at all on our brain - the single most expensive organ that we have in the body.
Thank you very much - You're welcome
Very very interesting...
Maybe I'm gonna show some of these clips to the original researchers.
Get them to react
In an endless circle - Yeah, an endless cycle of reflection...
Oh, they'll go mad...
What the English researchers say is on collision course with
what the Norwegian gender researchers say. I'm looking forward
to hear what the Norwegian think of these findings.
First I'm meeting Egeland.
I show her Baron-Cohen's studies on the newborn.
And I tell her about Diseth's studies that show boys and girls
prefer different toys from the age of nine months.
When he observes this he's seeing what he's looking for.
He wants gender differences and innate ones.
So he finds what he's looking for? - Yes.
It's interesting to see how much energy one can spend
to try to explain something like gender differences biologically.
I feel they say it's an element of biology here and also of culture.
But you think it's only culture. - Yes.
When you see the research on newborn babies does it change your view
that equal treatment would lead them to have similar interests?
No, it doesn't change that.
What is your scientific basis to say that biology
plays no part in the two genders' choice of work?
My scientific basis?
I have what you would call a theoretical basis.
There's no room for biology in there for me.
That would... And I feel that social science should challenge
thinking that is based on the differences between humans
being biological.
Is it the social science's task to challenge biological thinking?
Shouldn't science find out why things are the way they are?
Couldn't Egeland just see what she wants to see if she has determined
biology has no relevance?
What about Lorentzen? Does he think this is interesting?
Amazing... - Amazing?
Absolutely amazing. I'm astonished that someone could say that.
The facsinating thing with this science
is why they are so concerned with finding
the biological origin to gender? Why this frenetic concern?
You say there are no innate differences that explain interests.
What do you base it on?
I must rely on science when I try to explain the relations here.
So far science hasn't been able to prove a genetic origin
to gender differences outside of the reproductive organs.
Because you don't recognize that these studies show this.
But they have a missing link! - How do you know it's not innate?
I say that the moment they can say for sure...
You said that there are no innate differences in feelings, interests...
How do you know there are none?
My hypothesis is that there are none. Science hasn't shown any.
Then I must work from that level...
You presume there are no differences until the opposite is proven?
Yes.
Interesting. And these aren't good...
I would call this a weak study.
Is everything the others do "weak studies"?
Would he find it as weak if it fit in well with his theories?
They are frenetically concerned with biological explanations, he says.
But I didn't see them as very frenetic.
They didn't say that everything was about biology. On the contrary,
it was the Norwegians who said that nothing was about biology.
Why are they so sure? And is it so dangerous with elements of biology?
But most importantly, can you as a scientist, understand the world
if you don't consider every possibility?
It's a very moderate proposal to say it's a mixture of biology and culture.
I'm not saying it's all biology. I'm simply saying: Don't forget about biology.
Transcript and timing by Baki Corrections by Mari (C)