Slashdot Mirror
Environmental Chemicals Are Feminizing Boys
pickens writes "Denmark has unveiled official research showing that two-year-old children are at risk from a bewildering array of gender-bending chemicals in such everyday items as waterproof clothes, rubber boots, bed linen, food, sunscreen lotion, and moisturizing cream. A picture is emerging of ubiquitous chemical contamination driving down sperm counts and feminizing male children all over the developed world. Research at Rotterdam's Erasmus University found that boys whose mothers were exposed to PCBs and dioxins were more likely to play with dolls and tea sets and dress up in female clothes. 'The amounts that two-year-olds absorb from the [preservatives] parabens propylparaben and butylparaben can constitute a risk for oestrogen-like disruptions of the endocrine system,' says the report. The contamination may also offer a clue to a mysterious shift in the sex of babies. Normally 106 boys are born for every 100 girls: it is thought to be nature's way of making up for the fact that men were more likely to be killed hunting or in conflict. But the proportion of females is rising. 'Both the public and wildlife are inadequately protected from harm, as regulation is based on looking at exposure to each substance in isolation, and yet it is now proven beyond doubt that hormone disrupting chemicals can act together to cause effects even when each by itself would not,' says Gwynne Lyons, director of Chem Trust."
All Danish mothers should be required by law to watch 2 hours of Chuck Norris per day during pregnancy.
"British children have higher levels of gender-bending chemicals in their blood"
HAHA
"The contamination may also offer a clue to a mysterious shift in the sex of babies. Normally 106 boys are born for every 100 girls: it is thought to be nature's way of making up for the fact that men were more likely to be killed hunting or in conflict. But the proportion of females is rising."
And how are these chemicals affecting animal population ratios?
I told you all along.
For the last time, they aren't dolls, they're action figures!!
Yeah it has nothing to do with forcing boys to engage in more timid play, impressing upon them that when they grow older they'll be expected to do their share of the child rearing, presenting them with effeminate roll models, balking at allowing them to take risks or play "politically incorrect" games, keeping them away from violence and agression more than any previous generation, or putting them in female clothing for a giggle. Nothing to do with that at all. It's the chemicals!
GIMME A BREAK.
These posts express my own personal views, not those of my employer
I'll come to your house and rub my dick on your kid's face; he'll be fucking cheerleaders in no time. And if you call right now, I'll do two kids for the price of one.
I assume they mean the Netherlands, since the Rotterdam Erasmus University is in the Netherlands.
When you shoot a mime, do you use a silencer?
and our "lessening" use of petroleum products look like a way to drive down the numbers of fags since those chemicals won't be as available, hence, they won't be affecting little kids. Yeah!
All Danish mothers should be required by law to watch 2 hours of Chuck Norris per day during pregnancy.
Is there a shortage of rednecks in Denmark? *cough*Texas Ranger*cough*
I don't understand how hormones will dictate that you will enjoy dolls and tea sets and cross dress. Aren't all those things... cultural...?
Given that this is good news for feminism, I don't see anything being done to correct this.
And oh yeah, I submitted the same story few week back.
Proportion of females is rising. This is good news.
Research shows that men who have bad hygiene are more masculine than their clean-shaven brethren. Again, fellow Slashdotters, this is good news.
commander taco
Chem Trust's website has some PDF files, but none of them are 326 pages, as mentioned in the Telegraph article. http://www.chemtrust.org.uk/Press_and_Media.php
One theory about why transsexualism occurs has been that it is a hormone induced neurological change that occurs early in development. While science is far from concluded on weather this is the case, I can from personal experience state that it is not a fun place to be. If there's even a small chance that environmental toxins is contributing to its prevalence then this is a very serious matter and definitely justifies a careful approach on restricting the use of chemicals that can influence gender development.
To give a slight idea of how strong an effect these things can have on a persons general wellbeing, a Dutch study found 20% of female to male transsexuals had attempted suicide prior to initiating hormone treatment. In comparison the figures following treatment with androgens were just a few percent. Now try to imagine what the effects might be when you expose an entire population to a diffuse cocktail of chemicals that interfere with gender development and you should start feeling a bit uncomfortable about the situation...
We now have an explanation for the "Metrosexual" trend...
"Nature bats last..."
While it's easy to laugh at the "positive" aspects of being one of very few men -- it should be noted on a purely biological level that far fewer than 50% (or even 10%) men are needed to carry on the species.
------ The best brain training is now totally free : )
FTFA:
I skimmed over the article really fast and the only thing I was thinking about was lesbians.
I'm going to be just fine I think.
This plot sounds awfully familiar. Are they taking their research from Tim Burton's "Batman" movie?
One of the main reasons that we participate in cultural activities is to fit in with the group. If chemical-induced hormones made boys more likely to associate/relate with girls then they would be more likely to participate in girl activities - however culture defines them.
That said, it does seem like a bit of a leap to me - too many factors to control for to get meaningful results. I'd be more convinced by separate studies that showed that exposure to certain chemicals increased certain hormone levels, and people with those hormone levels were more likely to have feminine behavior than to jump straight between the two like the summary implies.
Would a slight emasculation be such a bad thing? When you think of the masculine elements of society, these come to mind:
Whereas these are more associated with feminine elements, these come to mind:
IMHO, the feminine model is a far better fit for 21st century culture and technology.
they want to completely deregulate all businesses, shut down the EPA, and get rid of every environmental law ever created. they make fun of green peace and anyone who doesn't eat mercury for breakfast is a 'goddamn treehugging long hair libtard'.
but in truth, it is Conservative, Christian Republicans who are responsible for the proliferation of transvestite and transexual porn sites, that keep mucking up my google image searches. The entire academic and social movement to legitimize the transgendered and even to create multiple genders 'in between' male and female owes it's rising popularity to the Republican War on Hippies.
Isn't it Ironic, don't you think?
Wait...2 year olds don't have sperm, at least that is what I remember from health class. If it drives down their sperm count, does that mean their testicle will implode?
"I love my dead gay son"
Can I bum a sig?
More women mean they'll have to lower their standards and accept any old shit we care to do thanks to the laws of supply and demand. I foresee a generation coming up where women will be back in the kitchen where they belong. :P
blah blah, and more polar bears exhibit hermaphroditic features, and there's a higher percentage of Florida alligators that are female, and girls are hitting puberty earlier these days, and, and, and....
Talk about a slow news day. What's next, an article about how Oracle is buying Sun ?
I want to delete my account but Slashdot doesn't allow it.
Provides requested citation
You now have boys wearing MAKE-UP, etc.
This article does not make sense.
Biological gender (dictated by the presence of an Y vs. X chromosome) is irrevocably determined at the moment a spermium merges with an egg, excluding very rare cases of extra chromosomes etc. External pollution by endocrine disruptor chemicals plays no role in this.
Exhibition of female traits in biological males is a completely different story, and there is increasing evidence that this may be linked to certain classes of chemicals.
However, I am not aware of any studies which link these chemicals to decreased viability of Y-sperm, which could be a reason for the decline of male births. The number of biological males feminized to a degree that they pass and spend their lifes as females, and is however far too low to account for this change.
Normally 106 boys are born for every 100 girls. ... In Britain, the discrepancy amounts to thousands of babies a year.
Would it have killed them to say what the observed rate is? Here's my analysis.
Google says:
United Kingdom — Birth Rate: 10.65 births/1,000 population (2008 est.)
Population, United Kingdom 61,399,118 - 2008
My calculator tells me that's 10.65 * 61,399,118 / 1000 = 653900.6067.
With 106 M:100 F ratio, we expect 106/206 * 653900 = 336473 males/year.
336473 / 653900 = 51.46% expected (106:100)
(336473 - 2000) / 653900 = 51.15% observed (about 104.7:100)
If we assume they're being honest when using the word thousands, then the observed rate in Britain is less than 104.7 boys for every 100 girls.
[Disclaimer: I'm not the same AC as the parent.]
With all the girly men out there, that just leaves more women for the real men out there.. *Salutes the morning wood* I'm glad to be an american. Now all eurobabes line up for you 100% USDA Beef!
Way back on August 4, 1961.
He is not suggesting that boys evolved to play with guns. He is suggesting that boys evolved with a disposition to pursue - amongst other things - adventurous endeavours, seek out excitement and to dominate others (call it leadership if you like). Messing around with guns is part of that. Playing with dollies is not.
It is a sweeping generalisation. Obviously some people do not fit the stereotype, and also obviously, chemicals can change the balance.
There was a time when if a country was attacked, that country would invade the attackers country, kill all opposition, and subjugate the population to ensure they could never attack again. Those days have gone. With the chemical changes affecting the population of the west, what they do instead, is sort of invade, but also trying not to hurt anybody. When the country being invade complains, the west gets sad and questions its purpose in life. They talk themselves out of the invasion before it has really begun and eventually withdraw their troops for fear that some of them might get hurt... ready for the whole process to start over again.
Damn, where are my mod points when I really have a use for them?
This post contains no rudeness or derision of any kind. All arguments are friendly. Terms and exclusions may apply.
Guess all we bible thumping luddites in Amish country can still get it up, thank you very much.
This is my sig.
Cool.
---- Booth was a patriot ----
which protested that US exports "could be impacted".
Have you seen the US trade deficit lately? The man was trying to save some jobs.
But, with that said, I think plastic should be banned.
This is my sig.
The only reason why I know this whole industry even exists is because a friend of mine will regularly spend between 800 and 1500 EUR on products made by an organic cosmetics company. They sell sell ridicolously overpriced products to people who are willing to pay for them. I don't remember the name of the company, except that it was based in the UK.
I remembered this whole thing because she sent me a study made into the effects of parabens (found in most cosmetics), but when I looked up the author, she was employed by the very same company that makes these organic creams. I even went on pubmeb to look for further studies but I couldn't find any that even looked into the topic. (I did find some that did studies on rats though.)
I'm not saying that Chem Trust actually has any links to the whole organic industry, but it was the first thing that struck my mind as i read this: they finally made it into the open.
You do have to wonder if the widening gap between rural and city male voting behavior might actually be attributable to exposure to these sorts of chemicals, in all seriousness.
This is my sig.
blah blah, and more polar bears exhibit hermaphroditic features, and there's a higher percentage of Florida alligators that are female, and girls are hitting puberty earlier these days, and, and, an
Well, I would think that, when you people are ignoring that animals in nature are all becoming genders, 10 year old girls are getting pregnant, that, you might look up from your Wii and say, "hey, you know, the whole planet is fucked up, and we might well, actually try to FIX IT." Sometimes when there is a fire, you have to yell more than once.
Just a thought.
This is my sig.
First episode (AFAIR), Captain Jack Harkness, tasting the estrogen in the rain - and cursing this bloody planet for its mismanagement of chemical waste.
Pathological kinda promises Path + Logical - but instead, you get stuck with pathetic.
This will be interesting in how it plays out with the excess number of males in China because of the 'one child policy'. If the gender transition occurs in China because of chemical pollution, and becomes more accepted, it could stave off world war three. If it doesn't, the larger number of available females in other countries could encourage emigration or war. Hopefully the pollution gets stopped before any of these longer term effects have a chance.
These reports come out every few years (re: DDT, et al.), and while they're not strictly incorrect, they tend to look at a very incomplete picture of what is going on. To be perfectly blunt, there's sexism going on in that these reports focus on just the environmental impact of chemicals on boys, and don't consider the larger picture of chemical impact on children in general.
Anyhow, if you take a look at the steroidgenesis diagram, you'll notice that testosterone is a precursor of oestrogen by way of aromatase:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Steroidogenesis.svg
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aromatase
Now, for those people who remember their organic chemistry and stoichiometry, rates of conversion reactions are increased with catalysts, and decreased with modulators. So, while aromatase will increase the rate at which testosterone converts into estrogen, an aromatase inhibitor will decrease conversion of testosterone.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aromatase_Inhibitor
And it turns out that Aromatase Inhibitors are naturally occurring:
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science?_ob=ArticleURL&_udi=B8JGN-4TWSRR1-1&_user=10&_rdoc=1&_fmt=&_orig=search&_sort=d&_docanchor=&view=c&_searchStrId=1093611464&_rerunOrigin=google&_acct=C000050221&_version=1&_urlVersion=0&_userid=10&md5=2bb4c9b03794595de88508b47078c134
http://images.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://www.fieldmuseum.org/research_collections/pritzker_lab/pritzker/people/people_images/stilbocarpapolaris.jpg&imgrefurl=http://www.fieldmuseum.org/research_collections/pritzker_lab/pritzker/people/alumni_mitchell.html&usg=__Xc_RyM3WV_KmlfwEp0KCwul_DAk=&h=137&w=200&sz=9&hl=en&start=7&um=1&tbnid=jlXt6kpeBMYsJM:&tbnh=71&tbnw=104&prev=/images%3Fq%3DBrassaiopsis%2Bglomerulata%26hl%3Den%26client%3Dfirefox-a%26rls%3Dorg.mozilla:en-US:official%26sa%3DN%26um%3D1
And there's a growing list of known aromatase inhibitors:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exemestane
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anastrozole
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Letrozole
So, simply put... what about the environmental chemicals that are masculinizing girls? Is it really just a matter of plastics feminizing boys? Or does it go both ways? Is it a matter of environmental toxicity in general?
Lastly, I'd also bring up the question whether feminization of boys is primarily caused by environmental chemicals, or if it's driven be completely different factors, such as 1) a cultural response to civil rights access for women, 2) decreased opportunities for war caused by nuclear detante, or 3) need for peaceful co-existance due to worldwide population increases a
> Now all eurobabes line up for you 100% USDA Beef!
Eeey! What happened to your foreskin?!
When you publicize the harm something can do, you also need to publicize the benefits compared to the next-best option.
[The numbers below are for illustration only and don't reflect any real numbers - i.e. they are totally made up]
"Oh noze, we must ban this or that chemical because 0.1% of our boys will grow up effeminate or be born with female parts" is alarming. But a statement saying "while these chemicals have their downsides, they save an estimated 20 lives a year" provides some context, and can shift the debate from "OMG ban them immediately" to "let's fund research into a better way to save those same 20 lives."
Knowledge is how to play a game, intelligence is how to win, wisdom is knowing what game to play.
Although this book is focused on how xenobiotics affect fertility, the topic of feminization is discussed in passing.
I love how this book was published back in '97, and now, more than a decade later, we still keep pumping endocrine disruptors into the environment and in consumer products. Ha-ha.
As for masculinized females, go look up "guevedoche"...
IMHO, the media is mostly to blame for this. Next time you're bored, start counting how many commercials and sitcoms on TV (and even movies) portray the husband/boyfriend as a complete neanderthal moron and the wife/girlfriend as a level-headed rocket scientist. And can anyone remember when TLC had stuff worth watching? Now you are told what not to wear, that gay men know what women want in a straight guy, that it's okay to have eight or more ankle-biters and yet still have a completely dysfunctional family.
How about every American comedy since the 1990's?
"Programming is life, the rest is mere details"
I guess this finally explains all of those awful bands like Fallout Boy and My Chemical Romance.
This is fantastic news, the less masculinity and testosterone in the world the better! Hope this trend continues to the point where one day, a half million years from now, males don't exist at all and are no longer needed :P
But feminism aside, I think this is more of a good thing then a bad thing, for anybody. Less testosterone going through boys means likely less aggression and violence, more kindness and nurturing. This doesn't hurt anybody. Just some egos maybe, and most people's egos could use a little downsizing now and then.
So, instead of encouraging research to develop newer. safer products (which would obviously have a market if the unsafe stuff is banned), it's better to have his oil buddies just keep manufacturing the same old crap.
So, what happens when an offshore competitor develops a replacement? Domestic production craters, and you end up with no jobs AND more imports.
There's a reason we don't allow asbestos (as another example of an unsafe product) to be used in schools, etc., and the ban drove innovation and created new economic opportunities. Your way of thinking, we'd have more cancers.
Seeing as Queer eye for the straight guy has disappeared, we have nothing to be afraid of. I personally think the "feminizing" of guys, aka metrosexualism (sic), is purely a result of the demand for more hygenic and "beautiful" men by women. What girl doesn't love the way gay guys look? Sure, women like the masculine looking guy too but usually that includes waxed chest hair, symmetrically shaved stubble, etc.
Quoting David Chappelle, ""If men could have sex with a woman in a cardboard box, we wouldn't buy a house...."
Anyway, back to topic: we should be ok as long as more women drink/eat hormone laden milk and beef. Do a google on the topic, or go here for a sample (poor one, albeit): http://www.foodservicewarehouse.com/education/health-safety/growth-hormones.aspx
We'll have super feminine women and sorta effeminate men. We'll be back at square one!
And I thought I was getting man boobs from eating too much. :)
Could it be that people that use allot of items containing these substances also have a more feminine culture they pass on to their children? As far as 106 girls for each 100 buys being born, could it be connected to a changing lifestyle in some way, like women choosing to get pregnant later because of careers? Could it be that having plenty of food tweaks our fertility to produce more women and less men, and vice versa? I have no clue, just suggesting... (:
From here
Cows pumped up with hormones to produce milk all year round is seemingly also doing damage. Men receive a lot of oestrogen via milk produced in this fashion, nothing the dairy industry wants anyone to know about, of course.
It's not the fault of social scientists, really, that their error bars are huge. Unlike physics, social sciences (and medicine, and psychology) are constrained by quaint ideas like informed consent and humanitarian compassion, and these restrictions are enforced by hard-nosed institutional review boards who need to approve every experiment. Social scientists (and doctors, and psychologists) are talented people, but they're forced to make do with milquetoast studies and the exceedingly rare "natural experiment". Some of the most informative studies in the area, in fact, would be off-limits today.
It's easy to decry the social sciences as fuzzy, but could you do better under the same constraints? We should commend social scientists for at least trying.
i suspect its been this way since hormones got discovered.
ever since, there have a been something of a divide between chemists and psychologists, as each want to be the authority on the behavior of man.
thing is tho that the body is a feedback loop, with more chemicals produced depending on all sorts of input, resulting in new output that again produce inputs. The results of this loop is then stored in dna, dna that gets passed on and mixed with other dna.
the big trick is that non-chemical input can result in changes in chemical production, just as well as chemical input can have an effect on existing ones. That's why mood altering drugs, placebo and conversations may all work.
all in all it becomes different tools to do the same job...
comment first, facts later. http://chem.tufts.edu/AnswersInScience/RelativityofWrong.htm
The debate of nature vs. nurture on intelligence is far from settled, but it seems quite logical to assume that genetics *must* have some influence on intelligence, otherwise dogs and apes and all other animals would be as smart as we are.
You seem to have fallen in a similar logical trap which creationists use when they claim that genetic evolution cannot cause species differentiation. You claim that genetics cannot explain differences among animals of one species, they claim genetics cannot explain differences between species.
Let's face it, genetics does cause a difference. For instance women of Jewish European ancestry are more likely to have breast cancer, the gene that causes this has been isolated. By knowing of this susceptibility, people can take the needed precautions to detect the disease sooner and improve the chances of treatment.
I think this taboo about acknowledging possible genetic causes for differences in intelligence is doing much more harm than good. If we had a better knowledge of what causes better or worse intelligence, we could create a treatment for disorders that afflict the disadvantaged. It helps no one to blame it solely on the educational system.
Anyhow, it's ironical that you make this argument here, where the archetypal slashdotter is a virgin geek that hacks computers in his mom's basement while the football players get all the girls...
Isn't the solution more obvious -- in developed societies, boys and girls won't be killed or beaten for doing things that don't fit the traditional gender roles. (Yes, I'm quite aware that the US still has plenty of bigots who would beat or kill transmen and transwomen.)
Sure, there may be chemicals damaging sperm production and the like, but it seems like a lot of this could be explained by more open minds.
Chemical Estrogens, xenoestrogens, can also cause an array of female diseases such as PMS, endometriosis, cramps, breast cancer, endometrial cancer, ovarian cysts, magnesium deficiency (chocolate craving [chocolate contains magnesium]), Vitamin B deficiency (neuropathy, restlesslegsyndrome), decreased thyroid receptor sensitivity (hypothyroidism with normal thryoid hormone levels) with ensuing weight gain and hair loss.
Read about it here:
http://www.goodbyepms.com/xeno.htm
It is standard procedure to give cattle synthetic estrogen to increase rate of growth, increase fat marbling, and increase water retention (meat more tender). Cattle are routinely given PMS.
First let me preface this rant by saying that the article is mistaking precocious puberty (I think) for brain sex and generally just a lot of rabble-rousing and nonsense. Brain sex (along with sexual orientation) is established in the womb, not when you're a two-year old toddler. Absolute rubbish. Even if we're talking about feminization, there seem to be 3 separate things the article is completely jumbled about: brain sex, primary sex (genitals), and secondary sexual characteristics (e.g. sperm count, gynecomastia, facial hair, voice box resonance). The article also completely ignores that all 3 of those things can sometimes naturally be a mixture of male and female. Shit happens. I also thought that the article was talking about sperm count in toddlers, but maybe I just need to get some coffee already.
That being said, does anyone know if girls could possibly be affected by this as well? Are rates of female to male transsexualism dropping while male to female transsexualism rising?
Moreover, does anyone care? Instead it appears we're so concerned about boys displaying feminine traits as though being feminine is some kind of sickness. It seems we probably wouldn't even care if girls were becoming more masculine, since masculinity is *good* and femininity is *bad* (but a condition of being a weaker female, so we'll allow it in females).
Granted, being a male to female transsexual does suck, and if there's something causing it we should take time to understand what's happening and how to prevent it. However, if humans at large are causing male to female transsexualism, then doesn't society owe it to male to female transsexuals to help them integrate as women, e.g. by improving their access to hormone replacement and forcing insurance companies to cover genital surgery?
Oh, I forgot, femininity is what's wrong here, not the fact that they're normal women psychologically who just happened to be male for some reason. We must destroy the disease of femininity!
*sigh*. Maybe the most telling thing will be when this post gets modded into oblivion.
If the articles are true, does anyone have an answer for a male affected by the problem? We sure as hell don't know how to change brain sex. Does that mean we'll just keep calling them fags and perverts and sick in the head and parading them on Jerry Springer and electrocuting them? Will we at least give these transgendered males a chance at having a little self-worth? I'm looking at feminists like Janice Raymond as much as I'm looking at Jerry Springer here.
Of course I'm talking about it as though transsexualism is something completely new, caused by these chemicals. Humanity has had female to male and male to female transsexualism long before it even knew what a petrochemical was. For some reason though we view the female to male transsexual as ascention, a natural course of moving from weakness to strength whereas the male to female transsexual is a deception, a shameful mockery.
I guess that's pretty clever actually. How do you get a conservative on board to get serious about the environment? Play on his misogyny. Why else would he care about something feminine like "mother earth" unless the environment might prevent him from having a strong son.
Join the Slashcott! Stay away entirely Feb 10 thru Feb 17! Close all tabs to prevent autorefresh!
TFA mentions that the ratio of newborn boys to girls is decreasing. That's the bigger picture.
This article almost comes across as being written by some kind of homophobe. Sure, avoid chemicals that are really dangerous, and while were are at it they want to "fix" the problem of feminine males. Wake up! The traditional male roles are slowly becoming obsolete and the male form is slowly becoming socially undesirable. (Ya know, according to the all mighty TV if you are born male you might as well go ahead and fill out a sex offender registration form because because your are sure to be a rapist, pedafile, pervert, or something)
It sounds like they want to blame this "problem" on some magic chemical that they can make go away, lest find themselves in a world surrounded by Ranma Satome-alikes.
Let's call them Final Fantasy.
www.dimitrithelover.com/toronto_real_men_august_2009.html
that environmental factors could lead to children who don't follow their societies' cultural expectations with respect to gender (e.g. girls play with dolls, boys don't).
If this were true in the more general case of cultural expectations being defied, it might lead to more individuals like RMS. He seems to defy cultural expectations in a number of ways.
Everyone knows that girls are inferior and for boys to be made like girls is the worst thing in the world. Girls should be happy to be made more like boys. I believe Madonna has a song about this.
That makes sense what is down wind of siliconvalley. I thought it was all just marijuana that was feminizing boys.
In the future today's geeks will score higher on the Chuck Norris scale by comparison to younger non-geek males.
No, what is appalling is that the UK's state schools and now through Universities, courtesy of Ms Shirly Williams, so dumbed down in persuit of a cultural experiment that able children do not lean enough enough, quickly enough and the average child vegetates.
Most, but not all Teachers have willingly gone along with this and some, and all Teacher Unions have persistently lied to the public.
Schools and Universities should teach each child to the best of their ability, as quickly as possible both vocational and if possible academic skills.
They are not for left wing cultural change, nor to massage the Governments employment statistics, BUT that is what they have been used for for over 50 years.
Politicians and Educationalists, aided and abetted by a few arrogant Industrialists, have all but decimated British scholarship, especially in Mathematics and the Hard Sciences while Polish economic migrants do the manual work. A disaster which will be very hard to correct since there are very few real Teachers any more.
The Quality is poor across the board. To teach something, you need to know how to do it first, then how to teach. The idea of a professional teacher is absurd, and leads to the lunacy you can see every day in the Rue Faidherbe in Boulogne, kids who can't even order coffee and cake in French, and teachers who are no better. Here the kids are bi-lingual in German and French and many speak Italian or English too. The Math/Science teachers have degrees in those subjects, no just a B.Ed.
As a result kids get educated and the Teachers are respected.
First off, that long ScienceDirect URL... there's a reason why the DOI was invented. :P http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.phytol.2008.10.009
Now people... realize that plants are really damned good stinkers when it comes to chemical warfare. Anybody who was surprised by that aromatase-inhibitor producing plant, go look up the case of the Australian sheep infertility and clover.
As for stuff suspected of feminizing males... I'm sure people here know that a certain well-known foodstuff has a good amount of phytoestrogens? Maybe soybeans should be studied carefully too?
really? fine linens & moisturizing cream are feminizing our young men? they had to do research to figure that out? really?
The other thing I haven't seen mentioned the results of all that birth control entering the environment- either flushed direct or peed out. We look for tiny amounts of stuff coming from plastics, then ignore the massive doses coming from BC pills.
I didnt' RTFA, but:
Normally 106 boys are born for every 100 girls: it is thought to be nature's way of making up for the fact that men were more likely to be killed hunting or in conflict.
Ummm, since we no longer do that, and pregnancy is a one-to-many male to female relationship, maybe nature is going to make 100 males and 150 females? Or 200?? A guy could hope....
girls
The Lifetime Network (http://www.mylifetime.com/). Every man is a cheating bastard, every woman a victim of his boorish ways. After watching it for a few minutes with the missus, I start to question my masculinity. Thank God for that Chuck Norris poster behind the TV.
There is a strong genetic basis to this, and that's why eugenics tends not to work, among other things. Yes the nut doesn't fall far from the tree, and that's why tall parents have tall kids, but over time these traits revert back to the mean, and so you will see average/short kids being born to tall parents (mailman genes excluded, but this helps too).
..........FULL STOP.
I'm posting anonymously so my wife doesn't beat my ass...
Real man are... ... not socialist pussies. We don't need your wimpy healthcare. We will set our own broken bones -- they way a cave man would do it. ... not pets. Hold your own goddamn purse and stop fucking talking while I'm trying to work. ... like to fuck, fight, and drink. And fuck. No exceptions. ... wonder why there is no cure for the period.
Cure the Period.
This explains Tokyo Hotel band members I believe.
"more likely to play with dolls and tea sets and dress up in female clothes."
The toy/game/clothing preferences of children are culturally, not biologically, driven. Corolation != Causation.
The english are part invader dane/dutch, but mostly native celtic. Recent genetic assays show this.
The "anglos" did not completely displace the natives.
wiki info : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genetic_history_of_the_British_Isles#England
Agreed, crappy summary. Why give the "normal" rate in exact numbers and then NOT give the "new" rate? Why does slashdot let such bad summaries get through - are the editors afraid of doing any editing?
I'm no biologist but what gender you are determined what chromosome you get. Any amount of synthetic estogren won't change your gender at any age, born yet or not.
Google's Super Secret Search Algorithm: SELECT @search_results FROM internet WHERE @search_results = 'good'
Am I the only one who thinks this is probably a really good thing for society in the long run?
-- sudo.ca
The choice of one's occupation can either aggravate or mitigate environmental feminization. A lot of you in technology fields are exposed to much more feminizing chemicals than someone in a more rural occupation.
For example, I'm a lumberjack, and I'm okay.
Try looking at their diets first. Phytoestrogen content in flaxseed meal and soy products are much more likely to blame.
http://www.soyonlineservice.co.nz/04malehealth.htm
Flaxseed meal has THREE TIMES as much phytoestrogen as soy, and is MUCH more biologically available (being far more digestible than soy).
~REZ~ #43301. Who'd fake being me anyway?
Considering that a lot of literature for parents is focused on encouraging more nurturing in boys, I find the idea that they would base research on how boys play as "feminization" as completely ridiculous.
Let me know when they find out something about physical changes. Blaming the results of parenting on chemicals is ridiculous.
I note you said "effeminate" males. However, biologically, they're "underviriziled". One cannot feminized males, because males are virilized away from women.
WARNING! This girl exceeds the MAXIMUM SAFE standards established by the FDA for BRATTINESS
All aboard the class action lawsuit express!
when there is a fire you have to do more than yell, if you want to put it out. Blowing hot air on a fire will not put it out.
A more interesting question is whether the long term consequences of this, given the pronounced gender bias in our politics, will prompt republicans to return to the hyper-green philosophy of Theodore Roosevelt or simply go extinct.
This story has also been covered before by a CBC documentary.
In October 1999 Steve Jackson Games published GURPS Y2K which included an article named "Plastics Ate My Baby's WHAT" about the effects of phthalates. That was 10 years ago!
How is it possible that these things are known for such a long time and nobody cares?
'Round these parts, beef apparently gets butchered....
"I am an Adept of Tantric VAX."
Private school teachers are paid even less, but then they're not expected to deal with violent kids, and most of the children either actually want to be there, or their parents force them to want to be there.
If we started a voucher system and private schools had to accept public-school-quality students, they'd suck just as bad.
I've got a family member and a substantial number of friends just entering the teaching profession, and they all agree with this strongly. Why is this modded troll? In fact, I thought this was common knowledge, that private schools refuse to deal with the troublesome, disabled, and malnourished, and so don't face most of the problems which plague public schools.
The primary and most powerful source of feminizing chemicals in our water is the vast quantities dumped into our water supply in the urine of women on the birth control pill. Anyone who considers feminizing chemicals a real problem (instead of using it as an excuse to go after industry) would be seeking, first and foremost, to ban the birth control pill.
How is it possible that these things are known for such a long time and nobody cares?
That, my friend, is one of the biggest questions in all of history.
Selah.ca. Pause, and calmly think on that.
Y'know, this reminds me of something. Chemicals in food and water that begin sterilizing the male population, among other things...
Oh yeah, ancient Rome.
This is not news. I did a report on the effect of dioxins on human children in my high school Civics class... in 1996.
I didn't know feminism was a chemical compound
enough said.
"Instead, it's our neglect of education. Really, it's appalling that teachers aren't some of our most highly-paid professionals."
We certainly have some problems with education in the USA. Funding and salaries are not among them, however. Indeed, in the most of the richest states in the US, there seems to be almost an inverse relationship between per-pupil funding, and SAT scores. When you compare the states on this price/performance scale, all of the top ten states are in the deep south, or the mountain west states. And while no one is getting rich teaching public schools, the meme of the starving teacher is largely a myth, at least in most states. The American Federation of Teachers' own stats show that the average K-12 salary in the US is $47,602.
Now, I have no idea what's involved with teacher training and education in Europe. But I do know that most American teachers have degrees in education, a field that attracts the very bottom of the barrel in each college class. I'm firmly onboard the movement to eliminate the education major for junior high and high school teaching, and to require that teachers have a degree in their field. Football coaches shouldn't be teaching geography or math unless they have a degree in it. The current system produces cogs in a machine that aren't very well educated themselves, let alone well equipped to educate anyone else. There are driven, outstanding teachers, but there are more cogs just going through the system for thirty years until they draw retirement. I don't know how easy it is to fire a bad teacher in Europe, but in the US it's damn near impossible if misconduct isn't involved.
Life is hard, and the world is cruel
they'll be expected to do their share of the child rearing
What? The nerve! Everyone knows fathers are supposed to ignore their children at all times, even if they're on fire.
You can still help with the child rearing without being a total wuss puss. I change diapers if my wife is busy, and help with laundry, and have taken to fixing dinner sometimes (which my wife really appreciates). But families still need fathers to be men, not androgynous daddy mommies. The need for males isn't just a cultural construction, it's also a biological need... see This is your brain without Dad. There are benefits to having masculine fathers at home far beyond simple cultural norms.
Life is hard, and the world is cruel
So children raised in a more natural environment with less exposure to these things (pretty easy to do) will be more fertile (as well as not getting cancer as much according to other studies) resulting in a shift in the future population towards people who care about their health, vacate the cities and lead a more natural lifestyle eating organic foods (not necessarily Certified Big 'O' Organic but real organic). Darwinism in action.
So, simply put... what about the environmental chemicals that are masculinizing girls? Is it really just a matter of plastics feminizing boys? Or does it go both ways? Is it a matter of environmental toxicity in general?
The number of plastics used in modern life has increased at an accelerating rate over the last few decades. The number of naturally occurring chemicals contacted (with increased city dwelling and "sterilised" food production) has been rapidly declining over the same period. The effect of natural volumes of "environmental chemicals" is overall decreasing whilst that of petrochemical derivatives is (or at least has been) increasing at a huge rate.
To pick one, what's your proposed pathway for worldwide chemical feminisation based on nuclear detante?
The links you give discuss Araliaceae (the Ivy Family) and genus of the same, the Google one doesn't mention aromatase (?!). How many of the population contact plastics based aromatase inhibitors vs. those of the araliaceae family of plants? It looks from the ScienceDirect link that the contact needs to be in the presence of hexane- or ethyl-acetance too.
From the Telegraph article:
"Scientists at the University of Rochester in New York discovered that boys born to women exposed to phthalates had smaller penises and other feminisation of the genitals."
Do you know how many of the population have been in contact with phthalates? Everyone who has used a plastic packaged squeezable bottle of some sort in the last 80 years.
"The authors of a 2008 study "observed that reported use of infant lotion, infant powder, and infant shampoo were associated with increased infant urine concentrations of [phthalate metabolites], and this association is strongest in younger infants." (Wikipedia)
But hey, perhaps that ivy everyone is mixing with ethyl-ethanoate and feeding to their babies is doing lots of damage too.
It would appear that one of the defining points of human evolution was where we as a species may have gained bipedalism, better use of our hands, a need to be relatively more clever, the monogamous pair bond and possibly even language.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/10/01/ardi-oldest-human-skeleto_n_306033.html
This suggests in effect that the moment our species ancestors diverged from the other apes and chimpanzees was when, through circumstances and mating preferences, it became the case that the dominant alpha males of the tribes were no longer the individuals within our species that got to breed.
One could argue then that having excessively male characteristics is a throwback.
Those fundamental educational flaws have been around for a long time. The only time enriched classes were funded in the US was during the Cold War, when we wanted to get top the Moon first. We succeeded, so the enriched classes went away shortly thereafter.
You just can't have too many educated people around, they might figure out what's really going on...
Someone doesn't understand evolution. The line above shows they imagine that nature tries to make things come out well, whereas in fact nature doesn't care if things come out well because nature isn't a person. What really happens is that the most efficient way to pass on your genes is to make equal parental investment in boys and girls. Genes that do this get passed on, genes that don't die out, so the ones we see around us are the ones that do. I'm a little surprised the ratio is as big as 106:100, though.
Wha? This is NEWZ? This theory has been around for more than 10 years.
Here's a report that the CBC (Canadian Broadcasting Corp) put out last year.
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- aqk
F U
Most radar operators had children who were girls. Most antena engineers agree that there is some genetic effect associated with widespread use of mobile phones that is likely to cause more girls than boys being born. I don't have time to look up the relevant evidence, posting such a bold claim - but it is comments and I hope someone can confirm or deny this who has more time. :-)
I for one welcome the increasing numbers of our feminine overlords.
Also, obligatory smbc comic
a scientific reason for EMO
What? That's not the commonly accepted understanding of the process.
I can officially blame my homosexuality on rubber boots and hand lotion??
Good people go to bed earlier.
Its Denmark. I live here and I see the males completely emasculated - sorry guys but it’s the truth. It’s a feminist society.
For details read:
http://www.rense.com/general79/brave.htm
http://www.city-data.com/forum/world/398666-denmark-sucks-happiest-nation-my-ass.html
Girls love pink.
At least nowadays they do.
But pink was the colour for young boys. Flamboyant and expensive colours like pink were boy colours.
Maybe when you're a child, you have no language so you read faces more. And how many of us can REALLY school our faces to lie?
Does this have to be a bad thing? Why not have China double dip those toys in the highest level of hormone laden chemicals they have and send the lot of them to Middle East courtesy of America. Those men could use some gentling. Watch what happens when they try putting on full black Burkas and walking around in 110 degree heat. Seriously, some estrogen might calm that hornets nest down.
Yeah, cultural responses to civil rights are definitely to blame for decreased penis size and physical deformities right?
This means more girls to choose from, guys! Too bad it only affects the following generations (unless you're into those wrong things).
I am not devoid of humor.