[0:02]Can I ask you a question for the NRK channel? Noooo! Yes! It's not a joke! It's a serious program. - I have a bit of trouble believing you when I see you. What will this be used for? - I'm leaving. Are you leaving? I'm going in there instead. - Better go for a walk... Do you know which is the country with the most equality according to the UN? - No.
[0:27]What will I be when I grow up?
[0:31]This is for boys. The kitchen is the biggest workplace in Norway. A little nap will make you feel good. We have accepted that gender differences are not in the head. Women's minds don't work in one direction, like men's do. Women are from Mars and men are from Venus... Or is it the other way around? - Characteristics of women and characteristics of men.
[0:54]More and more girls are studying medicine. The best in the world in equality. We still have a long way to go... Young people's choices are more traditional today than 15 years ago. - It's a paradox, isn't it? - It's strange. - Very strange. It's a mystery. I think: "If only I had an explanation for that!" .
[1:19]This is me... and this is my bald head. Usually I sit here with Bård and Atle and we invent jokes. But today I'm not going to invent, but to discover things. Instead of messing around with society, I'm going to try to understand it. In 2008, Norway was designated as the country with the most gender equality. Norwegian women have gone from being housewives, to being teachers, doctors, lawyers... I look quite strict. - Party leaders, we have to make the right decisions. And prime ministers... Now you'll learn a lot. - And caretakers: I'm the caretaker here! Are you the caretaker? A lady is not capable of doing a job like that. But there's something that seems to be failing in "Equal Norway". Something doesn't add up. In fact, I thought that in Norway we have advanced so much, that everyone could do what they wanted; and that is why there are women and men in all professions. But... it is not like that. Let's visit a company where most of the employees are men. Hello! I have an appointment with the engineers. Where can I find them? I think they are in the dining room. What percentage of women engineers are there here in the company?
[2:38]Ten percent. - Most here are male engineers. - Do you think that one day the proportion will be fifty-fifty? - I doubt it. - Why? Construction is still a man's thing. - What do you mean by "man's thing"? - Well, you get dirty... it's about building, demolishing... those are man's things. For me, it sounds incredibly old-fashioned that there should still be "men's things" and "women's things". But let's go to a place where they do traditionally called "women's" activities. Is it the lunchroom? - Yes. Welcome. - Hello! Are there no men here?
[3:22]No. - No one? - Unless you don't define yourself as a man. - Oh, that's it! There are nurses, but not here. - No, not now. There have been before, but for some reason or another they don't last long. Women and men in the most egalitarian country in the world still work in different things. The official report "Gender and Salaries" states that almost 90% of nursing staff in Norway are still women, while only about 10% of engineers are. This has been the case since the eighties.
[3:55]The government has concluded that the gender distribution in the Norwegian labor market is astonishingly stable. This is called "the Norwegian gender equality paradox". For several years, the government has tried to incorporate male nurses and female engineers. - Kristin Mile was a mediator for the defense of equality. She believes that these measures have changed almost nothing. You get an effect for one or two years, but then it falls again. - So what is the reason? First, let's rule out some explanations: Is it because of discrimination? - No, it's not so much because of that. The former Minister for Children and Equality, Anniken Huitfeldt, denied that girls are worse at science. - Girls are better at all subjects, except for sports. So why are so few women interested in working in technical or engineering fields? - It seems boring. - But working with computer parts and developing systems, isn't that also an interesting challenge? Yes, but not as exciting as meeting people every day and talking to them. I don't think so. - Yes, it's important to write it down to make it clear.
[5:18]Well, why are girls in our egalitarian country so little interested in studying technical careers?
[6:24]It's the female heritage of working taking care of children, since always. - Old custom? - Yes. Society and cultural influences are the explanation that people give to this phenomenon. Others think that the reason is even simpler. I think it's in the genes. - Do you think boys and girls are born different? - Yes, I'm sure! - There are sexual differences. We can wish to be more equal, but we are what we are. Among us there are differences. - The other explanation is that boys and girls are simply born with distinct interests. Well, could it be something inside us? We often read that men and women have different brains. - Could there be innate differences that explain why men and women work in different fields? I'm going to the Institute of Labor Research to visit researcher Cathrine Egeland, who has written several research reports on men's and women's professional choices. In the popular scientific press, we often read that men's brains are one way and women's are another. - What do you think about that?
[7:37]I don't know if there's any truth to that or not. But it's shocking to see how much interest there is in finding those differences. You're not very interested in those differences... - No, no. I'm very little interested in that. - So it's not relevant to look at brain differences to understand why men often become engineers and women often become nurses? No... no, I don't think so... No. - Hello! Are you okay? - Hello! - A good handshake! My detective work leads me to gender researcher Jørgen Lorentzen, from the Interdisciplinary Centre for Gender Research at the University of Oslo. There are investigations that affirm that men's and women's brains are different... - Yes. - What do you think about that? They are old-fashioned investigations. Most of those investigations are obsolete, according to later studies. Most no longer talk about brains being configured in diverse ways. - So the difference between boys and girls is only genital? No, man! Breasts, hair, height, or muscle mass are other aspects. But... apart from that, there are no differences. - Are they identical? - Yes, in principle, they are identical.
[8:55]Norwegian gender researchers do not believe that innate gender differences are significant to understand why boys and girls are interested in different things. But I wonder: If we are born equal, what about Camilla Schreiner's study? - That shows that we continue to strongly instill gender roles in children and young people. Lorentzen believes that children assume the expectations that the environment has about what a man or a woman should do. - We are in charge of systematically marking the differences between boys and girls from day one. There is a study in which a baby girl was dressed in blue and a boy in pink. People would go see the child (believing it was a girl) and say: "You are so adorable"... - Did they really do that? - Yes, because of the color. If you have a baby with a pink blanket in their stroller, adults often come up and say: "What a beautiful princess, what a lovely little girl!". And if the baby has a blue blanket, they say: "What a strong little boy!". And they pat them, saying: "You're going to be a tough guy".
[10:08]Yes, it probably is, even if we think we treat boys and girls equally. But, how were they treated to me, for example? - I grew up here, this is my street: "Heggebærstien".
[10:23]Hello mom! I, I, I... - Hello! So glad you came! - Lovely! - Come in! - When I was little, you used to tell me: "Oh, my tough little warrior!"? No, I never said that. No! How was I going to say that to a little one? - Was he tough and strong? - No, I didn't think of him in those terms. - No. At Harald's house. - I also don't feel that I treat my daughters in any special way just because they are girls. - What gender are you, boys or girls? I don't remember.
[10:56]Dad...! We are girls. - But I'm not concerned with people's gender, but with who they are. - I'm a girl! - Most people believe they treat their sons and daughters equally. Yes, most do. But what I mean is that, without openly mentioning it, you can see that we expect different behaviors from girls and boys, and consequently we treat them differently without thinking about it. It happens without us realizing it. - You don't think about it, but of course it influences them.
[11:33]But the influence doesn't only come from parents. - Just go into a toy store and look at its appearance to understand what that store suggests that boys and girls should do. There is no doubt that the toy industry clearly shows children which toys are for boys and which are for girls. Would you like... this one here? - It's for girls. - And this one? - For girls. - And this one? - This one is good? - Yes. - What does he like to play with?
[12:09]Balls and cars. - Ah, yes. - It's not only the toy industry's fault. The environment also influences us constantly. - This confirms that there are certain roles for men: men are represented by a digging silhouette. Women should think: "I can't do that work". Another small influence! If men and women were treated equally from the beginning, they would develop the same interests. - Is that so? - Yes, that's what I'm implying... Ah! If boys and girls faced identical expectations, would the differences in interests disappear with it? - Do you think this is so malleable that societies where the roles are reversed can exist? - That is the basic principle. As you well say, we are malleable and flexible. There are no limits between what a man or a woman can do in terms of what is really important: behavior, emotionality and conduct. The capacities we have.
[13:14]Bjørg, Randi and Signe are welders at the Rosendal shipyard in Stavanger. - It is clear that women and men can do what they want, if they really want to. But, are there cultures where women want to do more technical jobs, and men want to work in contact with people? Nobody has yet managed to compare all cultures. But the professor of psychology Richard Lippa, in association with the BBC, has carried out a huge survey on the internet. I decide to meet Lippa. - Well, come on. My office is here. - Although a common survey usually gets about a thousand responses, Lippa has obtained responses from more than 200,000 women and men in 53 countries in Europe, North and South America, Africa and Asia.
[15:18]In all these countries, men and women were asked what they most wanted to work on. - And what was found? - There are big differences. Men are more interested in occupations related to physical things, such as engineering or mechanics. And women are relatively more interested in working with people. The reason for this pattern could be that women all over the world are encouraged - by the fact of being women - to communicate, to talk and be more social? It is possible that there is a degree of truth in that statement. But it would be expected that something would be different between all these countries, if culture had an important influence on these issues. But the result of the study was identical in all 53 countries. In other words: it is the same in Norway as in Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, India, Singapore or Malaysia. The difference between men and women is very large. And this difference seems to exist in all 53 nations. But what does Lippa think is the reason for these gender differences in all cultures? When you see results like these, of two lines that are almost flat and do not change in any of the countries, it is probable that the cause is biological. - Could there be something biological involved in this? - Lippa's studies suggest that there could be innate differences. But there is no proof of that. - As scientists, we cannot give an explanation based only on one study. We must look at the results as a whole. A possible response to the biological factor, is that this happens very early in development. Ahhh! - And really, how early can gender differences in interests be identified?
[17:06]Most of us have noticed that boys and girls play with different objects, but professor Trond Diseth, from the National Hospital, has systematically studied this phenomenon. He has developed a test to know if there are gender differences at an early age. Are you Harald Eia? - Exactly! - Welcome to the child psychiatry area. - Trond Diseth, is director of area and professor in the Child Clinic of the National Hospital, and works with children with congenital genital malformations. To determine if a baby is a boy or a girl, he has designed a test-game. We have selected ten different toys. There are four "feminine" toys, four defined as masculine, and the two remaining are considered neutral. These ten toys are placed in a concrete way. Then we observe the child and how he relates to them, while we record on video.
[18:10]We notice that there are clear differences between healthy boys and girls (from nine months of age), in that boys choose masculine toys and girls feminine toys. That from nine months, boys and girls choose different toys, could be because already then they suffer the influence of gender role-based education; but Diseth does not believe that. - Children are born with a clear biological predisposition of gender and sexual behavior. Afterwards, it will be the environment, culture, values and expectations that surround us, those that will be in charge of favoring or attenuating this. Do you think that society can force it a little, but only up to a certain point? - Yes, but not in such a decisive way that it can modify the inherent identity and the predisposition of gender. I took out my phone to show Diseth, parts of the interview with Jørgen Lorentzen. Despite certain technical problems, Diseth can hear the speech of the skeptical gender researcher. - I have to put it close to my ear because it sounds quite bad. - Yes, quite. There are investigations that affirm that men's and women's brains are different... - Yes. - What do you think about that? - They are old-fashioned investigations. "Most of those investigations are obsolete," according to "later studies."
[19:42]Yes, there are quite a few strange studies in the United States. But even so, I have decided to give North Americans a chance. - I've eaten garlic. So if I get too close, slap me. - Scream. - Yes, do it.
[20:09]As a researcher, she has carried out studies; finding things very similar to those that interest me. - Will it be difficult for you not to be funny? - Nooooo! I, I, I... If you try to enter another state of mind and tune into mine... - Yes, absolutely... Or are there comedians who are funny all the time? - Not that I know of. - Nooo! I, I, I... Anne Campbell, considers the human being from Darwin's theory, according to which, our characteristics are the result of a long process of selection. The key to understanding it is in how many descendants you leave. Each circumstance that increases the capacity to leave more descendants, will tend to remain in the genetic code. These are the traces that selection leaves in both men and women. So, why has evolution made women and men different? - If women are the ones who give birth, breastfeed and raise children, it would be very surprising if there wasn't some kind of psychological mechanism that helped them fulfill their tasks, and making those tasks result in placentas for them. So, feminine traits such as empathy, or avoiding dangerous confrontations where injuries could result; avoiding social exclusion that could alienate them from the group; these are all positive qualities that are supposed to make them more capable of surviving, reproducing and having children, who in turn can also reproduce. According to Campbell, it is probably because of that that current women are more oriented towards others than men. We know, thanks to many psychological studies, that one of the biggest sexual differences is observed if you put people in a stressful situation, telling them, for example: "In about half an hour we are going to give you some very painful electric shocks." And we prepare the equipment, telling them: "You have to wait. Do you want to wait alone or in company?" Women will choose to be accompanied. Commonly, men under stress "want to be alone. They don't want to be with anyone!". Men and women in 2010 still have influences from genes that developed hundreds of thousands of years ago. That's why women choose nursing, medicine, social work, teaching. All those areas where there is cooperative exchange. Where women seem to feel most at home, most comfortable.
[28:36]Of course there are overlaps between sexes. Some are huge. There are women who are fabulous in engineering, physics or chemistry, etc. But in essence, I would say that these are typically masculine interests and less feminine. I think that evolution is certainly important, but couldn't current gender differences be better explained by the fact that we treat boys and girls differently from day one? Now we know that gender differences in some areas are very important. So it's difficult for me to believe that those subtle differences in the tone of voice we use, or the way we make eye contact, and things like that, can really have such a profound influence on the interests, activities or preferences that children show. It's time to summarize a bit: Is it possible that the common people are right in saying that there are innate biological causes that make men and women have different interests? I think there are several things that indicate that. But if gender differences are rooted in genes and hormones, why do girls in less egalitarian countries prefer to study technological fields more than Norwegian girls? It's interesting... that the freer people are in society, the more opportunities you offer them to do what they want, the more likely it is that any kind of genetic predisposition they have will find a cause to manifest itself.
[30:03]In countries with gender equality like Norway, you are really free to follow your inclinations. And I think that in the end, men and women are interested in somewhat different things. Perhaps this solves the "paradox of equality": In a free and egalitarian society, men and women become "unequal" because they have the opportunity to cultivate their own and particular interests.
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