Oh Rosie ....

When I turned 21 I moved to Palmas, in Brazil. It was my first time living there as an adult. I made an efford to get to know the neighbors; and I felt like I was in a foreign country even though it was my own. One day chatting with neighbors trying to mingle as a local, I brought up Darwinism in a joke. I was surprised to learn that nobody in my neighborhood believed in evolution. They are catholic and believe in creationism. You know Adam and Eve. I remember thinking they were joking. I couldn't imagine why they would believe in such a flawed story. I couldn't imagine how one could live with that kind of "truth".
And they felt the same about me. Calling me "the girl that came from monkeys" we had a good time in our disagreeing in such basic terms.

This was the first time that one of my personal established norms - which I assumed was universal - was blown away; and from the eyes of others discarded as craziness.

This happened again last week.

Sitting in a dusty - prisoner transporter looking - bus, my classmate and I got into a discussion about our female driver. The driver sucked and we were fearing for our lives.

Alina said she sucks because she is a girl. The causal relation was clear to her:
girl= bad driver.
I kept insisting that was not it.
But my classmate was firm in her opinion that women suck at driving.
Not only that, she extended her argument to this:

women with higher estrogen levels are girlier and suck MORE at driving than tomboy women, who have lower estrogen levels.

She was so firm with this argument that all I could reluctantly say was:
"Are you sure it works like that?"
and she would go:
"yeah, it makes sense doesn't it?"
I should add here that she is a very persuasive person. If she told me today was Friday even though it was Ash Wednesday I would consider it a bit in my head.
I reached back into my memories from psych 101 and though I twitched my eyes a little, but all I could do was say:"hun, I don't know", and make a mental note to look it up later.
I ran this by Joe, who agreed with me that at the very least the theory was fishy.

But then I talked to another friend who simply said:
"It makes sense to me!" and I was left wondering...WTF?

I just don't like - no, that's too light I am terrified - how this things are being linked with stereotypes and making sense to such smart women.
I just cant accept the idea that they are right and I suck at driving because I have higher estrogen level...and not because I just suck at it.
So I did some reading.

I also discussed female and male differences more with friends over katsu curry.

This was a really wake up callish, depressing "she said, he said" (these are all actual quotes as my memory's accuracy permits - corrections are welcome)
She said: "guys are stronger, better"
He said: "ït's evolution"
He said: "estrogen makes girls more emotional"
She said: "higher testosterone levels make people more aggressive"
also mentioned: "drive like a guy"
and perhaps most importantly "its nature, you can't go against nature".
I was really shaken about this one.

I tried hopelessly to emphasize the importance of nurture and how we are taught this gender roles as kids and follow them into adulthood and then teach our kids; how spacial intelligence can be easily taught (see tetris research) therefore is not an indicative of a major difference between the capabilities of male and female.
I talked about the fact that if researchers tell women that a test is gender neutral they do just as well as men.
I even talked about how in many species it is the females who hunt - this for some reason expanded into talking about how monkeys are gatherers not hunters except for gorillas eating smaller monkeys (see youtube video totally gross)

But I failed in trying to make them consider the nurture over nature point.
and She shut my mouth with a blow to my heart - because of which I vow never to engage in such conversation again - when she said:

"We are equal under the law. But we are not equal because we are different"

I could feel the norm shattering.