I found Professor Dalto's lecture to be quite interesting. Although I knew that there was a gender gap, I don't guess I had ever looked at the reasons why. Along with his hypotheses, I made a few of my own throughout his speech. First, religious people (esp. women) are more likely to vote republican. I believe this is because democrats are liberal and tend to favor abortion and those kinds of things. Most religious people are taught to see this as murder and will vote the other way. Second, married women tend to vote republican. I see this all the time in my hometown. Because males in Alabama tend to be republican, they can sway the vote of their wife. She asks who he is voting for and he says Bush, and she will go along. That tends to be very popular today.

Most women are anti-war so this war today will influence some voters. One can look at it either way in this case though. Bush invaded Iraq because of the threat of WMD, but in every speech Kerry gives, he flaunts that he is a Vietmam vet. As all should know, Vietnam was not the most popular war either.

Dr. Dalto's topic of Security Moms was interesting but brought a point to mind. Women don't want to be there because they want to care for them and use diplomacy instead of force. Dr. Dalto said basically treat them like children. Folks, terrorists are different than children. Remember 9/11...children don't do that.

With Dr Dalto finding that neither nature nor nuture were valid inidicators within the data set as to how men and women would vote, I believe that it has implications on how we choose to discuss masculinity and feminity in that there can be certain instances where men dont follow their biological predestintion to be more aggressive and wome to be more nuturing.

As Tatter writes and Dalto suggests, "Men externalize punishment and seek revenge, whereas women internalize violence and empathize with other victims of violence." I agree with Dalto in his presumption that this is most likely due to women being the recipients of violence. The man in "The Man Who Was Almost a Man" responds to his hardships through his purchasing of a gun [violent], yet he reacts by leaving the situation when the troubles get too hard and he would be forced to be financially responsible for his killing the ox. In "Like That" Marian responds to her being a victim of violence in that she chooses to withdraw and keep her emotions to herself.

I found Professor Dalto's results from his study to be very puzzling, making me wonder about the validity of his study in the first place. There seemed to be quite a few shortcomings and limitations to his results which made me question the effectiveness of his tests. Without delving into the possible statistical errors, I'll say that I too was slightly puzzled by Dalto's results showing that factors of nature and nurture were shown not to valid predictors for voting behavior between the genders. The gender gap is also apparently extremely small anyway, which makes me skeptical of the concepts of nature and nurture, since they did not seem to affect voting.

Since the results do only show the conclusions gathered from a study on voting behavior, this new nature/nurture gap could be explained away in theoretical discussion on why voting habits are different and are not valid factors in the tiny gender gap. Voting seems to me like such an individual choice that gender might not have that significant of an effect on, but I do not want to focus too much on voting since that is not my goal.

What this new gap does seem to imply is that a person might be in more control of themselves, having more personal, moral responsibility than we used to think. If nature and nurture are not valid for determining this kind of behavior in men and women, then apparently a person does not seem to be as subject to various external influences as once thought. However, this is still difficult to prove or even use to disprove our beliefs about nature/nurture. While I might claim this new theory, I still doubt the complete validity of it and its potential discrediting of the alternative nature/nurture.

If this new theory is favored over the alternative, we are forced to redraw our lines around the definitions of masculinity and femininity. They become what the individual makes of them. They are no longer a social norm but an individual choice or identity. Even with gender today, the lines are already beginning to blur as we question what makes something masculine or feminine, and where the border can be drawn on gender. This brings us back to what still defines the two, and at least one uniting factor that seemed effective in determining male/female opinions was the fear factor.

The fear factor, apparent use of violence, intimidation, etc, still showed a slightly significant difference between genders. According to the results gathered, men were obviously more likely to externalize their aggression through physical punishment and retaliation, which I nod my head in agreement to because that seems to be the way things are. Women, on the other hand, were identified as being more likely to internalize their aggression, sympathizing with victims, etc. which also makes clear sense to me. However, I am reluctant to accept such generalizations, since there are always exceptions to each side of the argument, but it seems that these sorts of perceptions of the differences between men and women are commonplace in much of the literature we read.

In the example of male's aggressive tendencies, even the young Japanese boys in "The Shoyu Kid" support this notion of masculinity. The whole idea of these young boys experiencing war through the barriers of an internment camp and how they interact with others is very interesting. Jackson (Hiroshi) could be the epitome of a Japanese bully: overly aggressive, tough, and very authoritative. His ideas of masculinity apparently stem from his older brothers, and allusions to John Wayne and Humphrey Bogart are references to the influence of American popular culture on the young boys. The boys did not seem to feel that guilty about bullying the Shoyu Kid at first, though when the real confrontation comes, Jackson really is the only one who cannot seem to relent with this aggression and violence against the Shoyu Kid. This case would definitely the support of male aggression, even in boys of such a young age, and their externalization of their anger creates a startling account of male violence.

Contrasted to this notion of males externalizing their aggression, females are thought to internalize more, and Sylvia in "The Lesson" could be seen. Her resentment of Miss Moore and her "lessons" seemed to have been internalized to a higher degree. She was often described as brooding over her situation and just hating those around her more than she actually was using violence to show her discontent. There were indeed several instances where she did engage in physical violence against the other kids, though it seemed to be fairly mild in nature, being more a sign of her own anger at the situation than at the person themselves. Towards the end, there are more references of her feeling hurt, even betrayed, by her friend who showed interest in Miss Moore, and many of these feelings were clearly internal. This better understanding of Sylvia was due in part by her role as narrator, but the notion that girls internalize more of their feelings is clearly seen throughout the story and certainly does not discredit the generalization earlier stated.

This whole concept of male and female behavior being determined by this "fear factor" is obviously not enough to stand alone as a valid theory. It will not always explain characters, and not every character will reflect this concept either. Exceptions are widespread, but it does give another insight into better explaining and analyzing the characters read about in class.

I found Professor Dalto's lecture to be informative but very frustrating. Many of the stereotypes he used for men and woman were both outdated and inaccurate. It is a well known fact that over the past three or four decades, the gender roles in our society have been broken and changed dramatically. It seemed to me that Professor Dalto was still associating men and women with the gender roles that they had long ago. Many women are not frightened mothers or house wives who oppose retaliation when a wrong had been done, and many men are not testerone charged war machines who take the "you hurt me, I hurt you attitude." I am not completely disagreeing with Professor Dalto's opinion, I am only stating that in this day and age, one must realize that the gender lines have been blurred and skewed, and this must be taken into consideration when performing a study such as this. I belive that Professor Dalto's assumption on the effects of fear on a person's eagerness to go to war are true. However, once again, there will be many exceptions to this hypothesis. I know of many men who are just afraid of war and fighting as any one else. I agree that a mother of a family may play into this theory not because she is afraid for herself, but because she is fearful of the well being of her family.

I found it very interesting, as well, that the points made be Professor Dalto could easily be applied to some of the works we have observed in our class. The two stories that first come to my mind when contemplating these issues are "The Shoyu Kid" and "Like That." In "The Shoyu Kid," the three main characters have been taken prisoner and locked inside a concentration camp of sorts. Because of the wrong that has been done against them, they lash out in anger and hostility against another boy. I believe they do this to acquire some sense of control of what is going on around them. However, in "Like That," the girl reacts to the wrongs done to her by keeping her feeling inside and not letting anyone know how upset she is. Although, I found some of Professor Dalto's assumptions to be inaccurate, I still found the speech to informative and very interesting.

There aren't often absolutes when it comes to dealing with people. One cannot really say that a certain race, gender, type of person will always respond or act like this, but there are tendencies and past experience that can be used to judge how, in general, a person will react. I think some good evidences of that are in the first three stories Dr. Tatter mentioned. In "The Man Who Was Almost a Man", the boy takes action against the things that he believes to be an injustice to him. He ends up shooting the mule as a result of his strong desire to shoot the gun. A girl who had been in the same situation might have just let the injustice boil inside of her and never actually done anything about it. The main character in the story, being a boy, took action in the story especially at the end when he runs away. "The Shoyu Kid" is also an example of the way males tend to respond to things. The boys in the story were appalled at the actions of the other boy, and they reacted externally by bullying and beating up the other boy. In "A Soldier's Play", the reaction is also external in the form of a murder. Woman tend to internalize things, as shown in the story "Like That." The older sister has obviously gone through something traumatic but instead of letting it out on someone or taking action she primarily internalized it. She become quiet and aloof to her family and her little sister. Even the little, who was more the "angry hard-boiled" type, internalized most of her reaction to the events. Most of her turmoil was in the form of thoughts and mental arguments and resolutions.

To be very honest, I was not that interested in most of Dr. Dalto's lecture on Thursday. I did find it interesting that his hypothesis applied so well to the stories we have been reading in class. I think that he was correct in saying that men tend to respond to violence and punishment by becoming violent and angry, while women do the opposite. There are very few cases of women committing violent crimes or getting in fights compared to men. I think Dr. Dalto's hypothesis applied particularly well to "The Shoyu Kid." The boys in the story were victims of exclusion and undeserved punishment, and they turned right around and inflicted both of those on the Kid. Gretchen in "Stalking" may be an exception to Dr. Dalto's hypothesis, but she is a very manly girl anyway. I can see how Dr. Dalto's hypothesis could affect whether people voted Democrat or Republican, but I do not think it would have very much effect. This is reinforced by the fact that the gender gap is so small. I think that upbringing has much more effect on the way a person votes since the way they were raised forms their beliefs and opinions. My parents are very conservative, and so am I. That is how they have taught me to think. I do not mean that I just accept my parents opinions without thinking for myself, but they definitely had a large effect on the way I think. I think another reason women are more likely to vote for the more liberal candidate is that women are more accepting than men. In "Love Problem," the narrator wanted to be a lesbian instead of a gay man because he saw them as more accepting. I think women are much more likely than men to accept things like homosexuality, although I am an exception to that as well. The gender gap seemed a very small thing to put so much effort into researching, although I think Dr. Dalto presented his findings well. I also think that Dr. Dalto's hypothesis does little to explain the reasons a lot of women vote the way they do. Most women have never been victims of violence, and his findings reported little about why those women vote the way they do. I tend to agree more with the nature/nurture hypotheses he disproved.

Ok, my responses are basically going to sound like everyone else's. I was actually pretty surprised to learn from Dr. Dalto's lecture that hormones have nothing to do with the biological hypothesis. At first I agree with the whole nurturance hypothesis about women being peacekeepers at home and overseas, but now that I think about it it doesn't correspond with what we have read or actually at my house.

I'm a peacekeeper at heart, however that has nothing to do with how I was raised. My mom was not the peacekeeper at home, if anything she was the instiagtor. She's really combative and not really empathetic at all. The females in the stories we have read in class are prime examples of why having more estrogen does not mean that one is empathetic or nurturing. For example, Sylvia in "The Lesson" seems sort of like a hard ass. People associate aggressiveness with men and she is an example of how that is not true, like when Syliva stomps on Sugar's foot in order to stop her from expressing her opinion. Similar to Sylvia (but definitely more extreme) is Gretchen in "Stalking." Because of how society views women, does that mean that we're not supposed to be aggressive? It is strange reading a character like Gretchen because of her anger towards the Invisible Adversary. Women aren't usually seen like that.

However, "Like That" portrays the older sister as the victim and she does interalize her feelings, and that could be why I identified with her. I associate women with being sympathetic towards victims, constantly internalizing emotions, and really being the peacekeepers. Now I realize that not all women are like that.

And men...I just always thought that they were aggressive and insensitive. For instance, Dave in "The Man Who Was Almost A Man." He associated becoming a man with getting a gun. To me, guns suggest aggressive behavior and proves my belief just a little more.

When listening to Professor Dalto's lecture on Thursday, I was surprised to see how the topics he was discussing related to the many stories we have read in Dr. Tatter's class. the typical stereotypes of men and women mentioned in his discussion were easily apparent in the action of the characters of the various readings. The nurturance hypothesis of the role of the mother as being a peacekeeper and supporting fellow peacekeepers overseas stood as the average person's view as the feelings or opinions of a female. In "The Man Who Was Almost A Man", Dave's mom was guilty of playing this role. She did not want to stir up any commotion in the household or between her and Dave's relationship so she allowed Dave to purchase the gun. In "Like That", the mother always stood as a nurturing, caring woman. Not one of a forceful or strong willed woman. When her daughter came in way past curfew she simply questioned if she was alright and made sure that everything was okay with her; keeping the peace between her and her daughter. When Professor Dalto began talking about how men have testosteron and women have estrogen and therefore there actions and responses are inevitably decided by their hormones, I just wanted to laugh. This statement is the basic stereotype of women and men, and even though this remark is usually true with people's actions, this stereotype is quickly changing during this day-and-age. The issue of masculinity versus femininty was also a main topic of discussion in the stories we discussed in class. In "Love Problem" the feminine man was searching for his 'peacekeeping, all accepting utopia' with women. Does this mean he has lost all agressive actions as a man and has gained all empatheic and nurturing feelings as a lesbian? i do not agree with Professor Dalto's overall statement that these scientifically assigned hormones have such a huge role in the way we will respond to such actions, like the war on terror and the war on Iraq. i believe that the way in which you were raised and brought up has an enormous impact on one's way of handling things. If a boy was raised to not be violent and learn to think things through instead of acting on impulse and turn to violence then this sterotype would not fit. Not all men are 'agressive and insensitive' and not all women are 'nurturing and empathetic'.

Through Dr. Dalto's lecture I found that women are still stereotyped as the more sensitive and passive of the two genders. On many occasions, he brought up the issue of women were not willing to retaliate when abuse or attacked. He said that men were more likely to plot revenge on an attacker. As a woman, I feel quite the contrary. If some one hits me, I know that the last thing on my mind is running away crying. I feel that it has nothing to do with how much testosterone or estrogene a person has; it has more to do with how a person is reared or what he or she is accustomed. There is a very thin line between being a bully and standing up for yourself.

As we discussed in class, not every man is thinking about killing someone or fighting, in general, like in the story "Love Problems". This man really sensitive , caring, and emotional, everything Dr. Dalto's report says most women are. So in my opinion, the gaps in the election have nothing to do with just men and women, it has to do with the person's mind set.

Professor Dalto's research wasn't able to show that nature or nurture determined how men and women vote. This research finding tells us that we cannot believe stereotypes without valid reasoning. In relation to our reading, Dalto's research shows us that we should not make too many judgments on the protagonist if we don't have enough information about them. As we pointed out in class today, just because Viramontes showed Arlene acting in a seemingly non-motherly way in the story "Miss Clairol," does not mean that we can assume she acts this way every day. We are not given enough information to support this thought, just as Dalto did not have enough information in his research to support the thought that nature or nurture could predict voting between men and women.

In the story "The Man Who Was Almost a Man," the protagonist was angry that people working in the field talked down to him as if he were a boy. In accordance with Dr. Dalto's hypothesis, he retaliated to the situation with wanting a gun to make the field-workers stop. This story seems to exemplify that men externalize punishment and seek revenge. In the story "The Shoyu Kid," we are able to detect that these boys are witnesses to violence within their territory. Frustrated with this violence, the boys take out their anger on the Shoyu Kid by hitting him and embarrassing him. In contrast, the female protagonist of "The Lesson," seemed to be more internalized. She contemplated things to herself instead of lashing out at others, and came to a peaceful conclusion.

I thought it was very interesting how the amount of testosterone or estrogen held no validity in determining how males and females will vote. This applies to our literature class because while we argue whether or not the woman's place is in the home and the man's is at the office, the only support we really have for this argument is our personal surroundings. I grew up with my mother as the primary caregiver and my father as the supporter. Therefore, i am more likely to support the traditional view, the so-called "Nick-at-Nite" view, of things. However, that doesn't mean that all people see mothers the way I do, so Dalto's inconclusion about this validity makes sense.
I also thought his conclusion regarding men and women's reaction to danger or threat was interesting. It makes a lot of sense when I think about it. When I was eleven, a boy in the grade above me made fun of me. I, of course, preceded to cry and call my mommy. My brother, who was older than the boy, tracked him down after school. Maybe that has to do with him protecting his little sister, but I am sure my sister would not have retaliated how my brother did. This is also apparent in our literature readings. In the Shoyu kid, the young boys take their aggression out on the "kid." They have been abused, and their first reaction is to do the same. While their retaliation isn't brought upon the soldiers, they take it out physically and violently. In "The Lesson," Sylvia doesn't play any practical jokes on the old woman. Instead, she reflectively decides that "nobody ain't never gonna beat [her] at nuthin." Her tactic of handling the sitaution is personal and mental, not violent. The result of this difference between men and women, especially since the war is a major issue in the upcoming election, will be a factor in the November elections.

I found that the forum presented by Prof. Dalto offered a very different perceptive on the voting between men and women. When listening to the lecture even though I did not want to believe that the statistics were valid, I could see how they were. I have grown up hearing both sides of political parties. It just happens to be true that my mom is more liberal than my dad. I believe that where a person is from is going to have a great effect on their personal voting choice. My dad grew up in Savannah, Ga. His family was very old-fashioned and conservative. They always had dinner together, went to every sports game together, and threw the debutant ball of the year. My grandparents raised their children in Republican values. They carried what they had learned from the “Ole South” to their children and now my dad holds those values today. My dad is very conventional thinking that it is the male’s duty to support their family and to go to war for their country. My mother on the other hand is from up North. She was influenced by her parents for people to equal rights. Her opinion of her political choice kept molding when she witness first hand protest and peace talks. She is very open-minded believing that women and men should share the work force and only supports the troops in Iraq not the war. As I grew up and got different views from both worlds, I tended to lean towards my mom side. So, although, I would like to disagree with Prof. Dalto about the stereotypical Republican candidate, his statistics state true in my family.
Prof. Dalto opinions would be proven correct when relating to the story “The Man Who Was Almost a Man”. Dave thinks that having a gun would make him more of a man than he already is. As Dalto suggested in his lecture that men react to violence as being “more masculinity”. In the end I found Dalto’s forum very true even though would like it to be the opposite.

I thiught that Professor Guy Dalto's presentation on how women and men voted was very interesting. I never thought that someone could determine how a person could vote by their personal background. During the past couple of years, I have paid more attention to the elections that have occured. One reason is because my dad is an elected official in my county. By hearing, Professor Dalto's perspective on voting habits intrigued me. I can see how women seem to vote Republican due to their natural nuturing behavior. I can also see how men tend to vote democratic due to their more aggressive behavior. However, I think that over the past years that women have become more aggressive and have started to vote democratic. I also believe that a person can become influenced by his or her family. I know from my personal experience that I have been influenced by my family to vote Republican because of my family's political party's affiliation.

In professor Dalto's speech "the Gender Gap In Times of War", there was issues and statisitics brought up that I have thought a lot about before. In thinking about everything he said after the forum I found myself thinking "I agree with this" or "I disagree with that." However, it is hard to back up everything I was thinking considering that much of what Prof. Dalto said was in reference to statistics, true statistics. I do, however, realize that statistical data can be misconveyed, misunderstood, and mistaken; I took stastitics in highschool and learned a lor about data that has been presented in different ways and with each way, using the same information, a result can be displayed in many ways. I agree that in general men and women think differently but I also think that individuality, despite gender, is the main effect on decisions. People's views on war vary depending not only on gender but on the way one was brought up and the environment which they are a product of. I did agree though when Prof. Dalto said that man are more external in their anger and women are more internal with theirs. One must realize though that there are always exceptions to these sorts of stereotypes.

Dr. Dalto's report helped me to realize why I may feel certain ways about some political issues. What he said about women internalizing violence and men externalizing it was interesting to me and although I think he was correct in this hypothesis, I realized that there can also be violent women and passive men. I can absolutely see how there is a gender gap in elections, but I do not think it has everything to do with women's and men's differeing view on violence or the current war. For example I know an issue that I feel strongly about right now is a woman's right to choose. While this is something that has been important to me since I began to understand politics, it is probably not something a man would think about it. Bush has passed some laws during this term which limit this right and while this is by far not the only platfrom I would base my vote on, it is something I consider. I believe issues of this nature could just as easily create a gender gap in times of peace that the war is creating in our present time.