So what ARE these differences between men and women?

[Lottapianos]

Yes yes, I'm aware of several obvious differences for those of you sniggering at the back!

On several threads recently I have seen posters talk about how men and women are different but equal and lots of reference to the 'inherent' or 'inbuilt' differences between men and women. I'm a bit mystified because as far as I'm aware, the only inherent
differences between men and women relate to anatomy, physical skills (speed and strength), getting pregnant, giving birth and breastfeeding.

What else do you consider an inbuilt, innate difference between men and women? Or feel free to agree with me that the only differences are biological and all other differences are socially constructed

If people are happy to accept physical differences, the null hypothesis would be that there are other differences too, both caused genetically and hormonally. Social conditioning also clearly plays a big role. It is like intelligence, how much is genetics and how much upbringing? Clearly, there are elements of both.

Obviously it will be almost impossible to separate conditioning from genetics so the debate will run and run. There have been rare cases of people brought up as the opposite gender and most have not ended happily. One example below:

www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-11814300

A lot of what one gets in these "feminist" discussions is anecdotal, of the type: "I was a tomboy", "I always preferred sciences", "I preferred to play rugby with the boys". Clearly we are talking about two bell shaped distributions with substantial overlap, so this is not really evidence.

LeBFG

YY - agree with your outline.

And the hunter/gatherer thing - the idea that hunting was better as a food source than gathering and that hunter/gatherer represents some kind of flintstones version of 1950s breadwinner/housewife roles is a modern hang-up. Hunting animals was much more about winning status than getting reliable nutrition.

"The males' main purpose may have been protection of the tribe rather than bringing home the bacon so to speak." .....kinda.....but in evolutionary terms (which is what we are talking about if we are talking about innate tendencies) it doesn't make sense to talk about 'the males main purpose to the tribe' - but in terms of 'the behaviors main purpose to the gene' i.e. innate tendencies tended to be selected for where they promoted transmission of individual genes whether this was good for the tribe (or the individual) or not.

I should have said in my last post that of course I also have a bias. I was brought up pre "Women's Lib" and at school we were actually made to recite the rhyme about boys being made of puppy dogs tails and girls being made made of sugar and spice. I do try and look at it in an unbiased way though and much of the science does point to male and female brains being different. If I'm forced to generalise I would say that women are more in touch with their emotions and more maternal.
I actually prefer women to men but I would miss male company if I only had contact with women. Men are more on my wavelength. To give one example I am very much into gadgets and "boys toys". I find men are for more likely to discuss all the ins and outs of them whereas women's attitude is a more practical "what can they do for me".
It works the other way round of course. I have a good female friend who works in an office with only men and she hates it. She likes nearly all of the men but she says "what can I talk to a load of men about".

'As a social constructionist....' I can see the glasses you wear mean you see things differently. I am (was) an evolutionary biologist -this taints how I see things. If you accept that sexes in animals in other species act differently through a combination of genes/environment, then I feel you have to accept this is the same in humans, even though those evolutionary-derived behaviours might be exaggerated (or indeed, minimised) by social conditioning.

Himalaya - you're perfectly accurate to point out that the behaviour of a male defending the tribe has to have the main outcome of selfishly reproducing the male's own genes. As tribes were generally small, the men would be defending their own children and wives - an immediate and direct effect of the survival of the man's genes.

I don't see how it's seriously possible to argue that there are not innate differences of neurology and psychology between the sexes, without arguing that the brain is a completely isolated mechanism that is not influenced by the body (which would be a very peculiar argument indeed).

If people have radically different bodies, as men and women do in various ways, then those differences are going to affect the way they think and feel. In terms of gender, PMT and menopause are two obvious examples.

As far as I'm aware, some of the most proven and widely accepted brain differences include:

• Men perform more highly at maths-based intelligence tests and school-work; women more highly at language-based ones.

• The average IQ of men and women is about equal (some studies put mens' slightly higher, but not to a statistically significant extent). However the variance among men is considerably larger - there are more male idiots and more male geniuses.

• Women have more connections between the two hemispheres of the brain.

• Womens' processing of language is more evenly shared between the two hemispheres. There is some interesting data about stroke victims and the like where certain parts of one hemisphere are damaged. I can't remember exactly which syndrome it was, but one of the ones where a particular aspect of language is lost but the other aspects survive. They found that men lost this capacity far more gravely than women, because the original capacity was much more focused in one hemisphere, whereas the women could just use the other hemisphere to compensate.

Of course ALL of these differences (and probably many more) are only to do with averages, and don't negate the existence of all kinds of individuals among both sexes.

I consider that we do not know, and that acting as if some differences are innate is dangerous and potentially damaging if they are not. So it is best to treat everyone as an individual and not assume that they will be a certain way because of their sex.

But Fast, brains are plastic and by the time any man or woman is taking a competency based test, they will have been socialised as to "men are better at Maths, women at languages"

I mentioned upthread an experiment where just saying to men and women before the test which gender typically performed better on a specific type of Maths test changed the outcome vs a control group.

I am not saying that there are no innate differences. I am saying that it is very difficult and perhaps impossible to devise tests for those differences which exclude socialisation, as per Trills's post.

Thanks kim.

Kim!!

Has does the fact that men weren't manipulated in the study as women were negate the findings of the study for women?

Firstly, it reflects RL more closely because it is women not men who are fed this message of being inferior in Maths. The point being that when this message was taken away women's performance improved.

Secondly, telling the men prior to the exam that men did worse might not have had the same effect as it would not be backed up by weight of society. So the two are not equal.

Hmm. To be honest if you saw the amount of learned bollocks neuroscientists, psychologists and science reporters have written about my field (linguistics) then you'd be as sceptical as I am whenever I hear someone say "I read about a neuroscience study that said men and women are different in ways xyz ... ".

InSPsFanjoNoOneHearsYouScream
We get hairier as we get older, they lose hair

... on their heads, perhaps. Everywhere else gets hairier.

You obviously have/have had younger men.

I was a long haired, beardless, smooth chested youth.
I'm now a bald, hairy-eared(yuk), hairy-backed, heavily whiskered old bloke.

Googlyeyes
I agree that men and women are the opposites of each other , in order to best preserve the species., that is the way nature intended us to be, 2 different halves that make the whole. It is also common sense. Men have the big muscles and strength to fight off the dangers of intruders that can harm their family, defend their territory, and fight the wild animals to take home for food. Their role destiny is in their genes, hormones and chromosomes, and compel them to be totally focussed on the task in hand as is so dangerous and cannot be distracted by anything else as is a matter of life and death. Common sense really.

"Common sense" is often used as a way of saying "I have no way of backing this up, I just know it".

Trills

'I agree that men and women are the opposites of each other , in order to best preserve the species., that is the way nature intended us to be, 2 different halves that make the whole'

Hmm... so do you think digerd, that there are things that a mother can do for a child that a father can't, and vice versa? Do you think that gay couples can be happy together without that other 'different half'?

PS

Of, course now it is not essential for men to tackle the wild boar etc, carry it home. I mentioned a survey to a man that " men think of sex every 20 minutes" and he said he reckoned it was more often than that. SO, how can he now focus on anything ( other than sex) for longer than 20 minutes, which worries me.

digerd
I mentioned a survey to a man that " men think of sex every 20 minutes" and he said he reckoned it was more often than that. Sadly...

OOH, there are more male idiots and male geniuses than with females. Mmmmm. So, there are more "normal" females, I think that may be so.

I am still not convinced with the men being "gatherers", and not sure what that means. I also watch many animal documentaries, and the behaviour of the males and females in almost all of species, is typical of their roles.

However, one particulary sticks in my mind as hilariously shocking.
2 different groups of chimpanzees in a wonderfful sanctuary, were attempted to be integrated. Both groups were introduced through a mesh tunnel, and lo and behold, on the front line of attack were the FEMALES, with each ALPHA MALE pushing them on at the BACK !!!!!!!!!!!

OneMoreChap

You make me laugh!!! But your SADLY, made me say Ahhhhhhh.

Triils
I will say that men living together are more compatible than male and female

Of course, parallels with the rest of mammal-kind has it's limitations. We're not all identical. But across all species with some kind of physical sexual differentiation, we find males/females have different roles and behaviours. It seems obvious to me humans would not be an exception to this.

It also seems obvious to me that social stereotyping, sadly, serves to reinforce these differences or to create differences where none really exist e.g. women are seen the less physical sex so are expected to drive badly and thus do so (also seen as less risk-taking so are thus safer drivers). I wonder where the pressure comes from to conform? In many rl experiences I can think of, it's other women that are the biggest regulator on womens' behaviour. It's only other women in my family that want me to wear make-up and shave my pits , men incl DH really don't care (they actively dislike the war paint).

"I agree that men and women are the opposites of each other , in order to best preserve the species., that is the way nature intended us to be, 2 different halves that make the whole. It is also common sense. "

This makes nature sound like some kind of Hallmark greetings card. When I read things like this I sympathise with why people adopt the opposite view. But unfortunately its wrong too.

-Evolution isn't common sense. Otherwise someone else would have figured it out before Darwin.
-Nature doesn't work to preserve the species. It just doesn't work that way.
-Yes maleness and femaleness are coevolved states and there are differences associated with that, but it doesn't make "men and women opposites" - look at height for a non controversial example - in general across the population men are taller than women, but there is a lot of overlap. Knowing someone's height doesn't tell you their sex - men and women are not at opposite ends of the height spectrum.

Men and women aren't opposites. They are actually really really similar, compared with how we could have evolved.

In some species the differences are much bigger. For example some kinds of spider where the female is many times the size of the male. Or some kinds of birds (peacocks, pheasants), where the male gets beautiful plumage and the female is brown. Or bees, where the females are workers and the males just fertilise the queen and then get kicked out when food is short.

Compared to all those, it's amazing how similar men and women are.