To think you often get a better discussion with men?

[splendidisolation]

I've been noticing this fairly often recently.

It seems easier to get into debates/quite in depth discussion about politics or ideas, more conceptual/abstract stuff with men than it does women.

Obviously my female friends are like this, that's why we're friends! I'm talking about casual encounters, random people you meet through events or friends of friends.

At least, it seems more frequent or easier to go down the path of having those more "pondering" discussions with a lot of the men I come across, whereas with women it tends to focus on their families, or past relationships, music, books, clothes, travel etc. More "real life" stuff.

Have you noticed this, and if you have, why is it?

I thought of this thread this morning when I was in the car with my female student on field work and we ended up discussing aspects of national and international politics and finance.

Maybe she was a man all along.

I have noticed how people with short hair tend to be much more open to having stimulating political debates. Whereas people with long hair just want to talk about shoes and music. Has anyone else noticed this? Do you think it's genetic?

At least, it seems more frequent or easier to go down the path of having those more "pondering" discussions with a lot of the men I come across, whereas with women it tends to focus on their families, or past relationships, music, books, clothes, travel etc. More "real life" stuff.

Actually, reading the OP again, it also reads like female strangers open up much more easily about their personal lives than male strangers. They tend to keep it impersonal and show off on whatever impersonal topic they stumble upon.

Is that a fair assessment?

TBH, I've had all kinds of conversations with women and men. But to get to know someone you need to get personal.

paxillin People talk about Brexit? What a surprise!

All women are exactly the same. All men are exactly the same. Traits or qualities are strictly assigned to each group with no variation.

[Gavel]

Exactly, ZenNudist. That's why there are only ever two versions of anything, the one for males and the one for females. Jobs, books, clothes, anything. And the audience of anything from theatre to sports is more segregated than Saudi Arabia.

Obviously my female friends are like this, that's why we're friends!

Does this mean that they're friends because you can discuss "higher" topics, or do you only discuss those topics?

True friends are those people you can share your problems with.

I can discuss politics with anyone, but, IRL, I only share personal issues with friends.

I am partly in agreement with the OP.

Men and women have a tendency, and it’s only a tendency, to be drawn towards exploring different topics when it comes to more intellectually-oriented conversations. Broadly speaking, women gravitate towards human interest/living systems subjects – the Arts, bio/medical sciences etc. Men gravitate more towards the physical sciences/engineering and abstract ideas.
(The graph in this article shows the gender bias in particular academic disciplines at doctoral level in the States. I’m assuming a similar pattern would be found here in the UK.)

I would say it is certainly possible to have a good ‘fine-grained’ discussion with a woman but, in keeping with the above findings, the subject of the conversation may well differ from what might typically crop up in conversation with a man.

Interestingly, according to the graph, politics is nearly gender neutral. And looking at discussions in MN – and assuming most posters are female – it seems that women are happy to debate politics in some detail.

I’ve noticed though that there is little discussion of the physical sciences on MN compared to other topics. In the Science Club – a quiet corner of MN – there is some talk of biology but the discussions are ‘course-grained’ in comparison to the in-depth discussions about other matters.

Men are also more likely to refer to graphs, tables and charts to support their assertions.

(I am very happy to undermine my position by including a graph here!)

Your graph is missing ‘kittens’, ‘shoes’ and ‘is cava better than prosecco: discuss’.

But seriously, nobody comes on a forum like this to talk about the physical sciences. I have a degree in physics and I work in a numerical discipline. If I want to talk about either of those things, I don’t do so on a forum I use for leisure and laughs, see?

And the gender bias for studying particular subjects is, in my opinion, ie entirely unsupported by any sort of evidence base, due to little girls being encouraged by magazines, TV, godforsaken bloggers like fecking Zoella etc etc to like pink sparkly things, dancing and looking pretty.

But seriously, nobody comes on a forum like this to talk about the physical sciences.

There was a recent thread about colliding stars and gold particles.
Mostly around the "mind blowing" comments, though.

Personally, no I haven’t and I tend to socialise with both genders fairly equally. I love talking to my DP about politics, we see eye to eye generally but have some different views but it’s similar with my best friend (who’s female).
I think it might depend on who you associate with though. For example, I went to Cambridge for a party recently and all the women were talking about clothes and makeup and all the men about business and politics. The women were all very ‘posh’ and none of them worked (of about 25 women in the room, two worked) and were looked after by their husbands - it was almost like they were leaving the business and politics to the men because its unwomanly or something. But then I was pregnant and grumpy so probably had my massive jealous-grumpy pants on.

jealous-judgy *
But I’ve never experienced that before which was probably why I was so shocked! I was told twice that it was pitiful I ‘had’ to work !?

You wouldn't like my mates. Football and shagging are the two main topics of conversation!

Lweji I am observant 😂

This comment can either be ironic or true lol

Definitely not both.

I'll keep it unobserved. Or unmeasured.

Most topics that relate to day to day life tend to be covered here.
For example, I have ended up posting a lot about worms, which is one area I work on.
But nothing on another area that's been my main topic of research but that's irrelevant for the vast majority of pps here.