Differences between women and men

[WastingMyYoungYears]

I think that there are differences between women and men. But it's difficult to know what these differences actually are because both females and males are socially conditioned to conform to genderised norms from birth. Nonetheless, if you think about any particular characteristic, the bell curves for women and men are highly likely to overlap significantly. It isn't helpful to say that men are more X characteristic and women are more Y characteristic though. Even positive gender stereotypes can have negative consequences, e.g. women are more organised / are better at multi-tasking - this results in the general acceptance that John, who by day heads a large multi-disciplinary international team, can't possibly be expected to sort out birthday cards for his side of the family, but his wife Jane, who may (or may not - that in itself being a separate discussion) have similar work demands, can.

Any thoughts? Be gentle, I'm just working through all of this in my head .

You may have heard of the 3 legged table question.

I have no idea if it has been properly researched but I was asked it in a mixed group and the women, including myself, gave the wrong answer and the men didn't.

www.gulf-daily-news.com/NewsDetails.aspx?storyid=201465

(Oh and both sexes got the answer wrong to how you stop a 4 legged table wobbling)

Put it this way. More people of African descent suffer from sickle cell anemia.

Actually only a person with 2 parents who both have sickle cell train can have sickle cell anemia and those people originate around northern Africa and the eastern Mediterranean.

A person from Greece or Turkey is more likely to have the trait than someone from Southern Africa.

i got the three-legged table question right

I find the reports from men who have transitioned from women fascinating. Their descriptions of how, for instance, their sexual desires and sensitivities alter under the influence of testosterone are illuminating. It seems likely that, no matter how plastic the brain may be, hormones impose fundamental differences in perspective and behaviour that it seems somewhat strange to entirely dismiss.

I think it's incredibly important, from the perspective of psychological health and treatment, to establish which behaviors (if any at all) are biologically intrinsic and which are not.

Petula How very unladylike of you!

While 3 legs may be stable, it does not guarantee the top will be level. There may be good reasons for not going for the 3-legged solution when you look at the overall picture.

Not being a brain surgeon or anything (an odd omission from my first aid at work course,) I don't know if it's known how plastic the brain is; I know it is very adaptable and constantly changing, but is the whole brain? Or are some parts constant, and it's all the layers over which change. Like on a computer, you can update the firmware and software, but the hardware is still the same, and that limits what changes you can do to the software.

I am prepared to accept it's possible there could be a way the brain has some immutable male or female part like that, but I definitely don't know - and like computers, while it might offer some restriction, it's pretty minor, compared with the massive range of different-looking outcomes you get, depending on what packages are installed, what files you create and so on.

Is the salient question here: if there are instrinsic differences should that in any way inhibit equality of opportunity to pursue the kind of life you choose to live?

I'd argue no.

Not to everyone, but it's regardless of gender.
Some people won't have the abilities to pursue some careers, such in maths, or social sciences, or art. There may be gender differences on averages or total numbers of people who have those abilities according to group. But there will always be people in each gender with such abilities.

The article itself reflects this:

"Female academics, he said, would almost always give the same answer as for the first question.
"Same as before," they would say, or, "Stick something under the wobbling leg."
However, male respondents, he claimed, would predominantly reply: "Three-legged tables can't wobble."

Some females would identify that the three legged table wouldn't wobble and some men wouldn't.

It might also depend on training.
If you train someone to look "outside the box", they will try to do it more often than not.

Pink Brain Blue Brain is a really good book to read on this, although it focuses more on children. I think the general idea is that there are small differences on average, (e.g boys are slightly more active than girls on average) but generalisations are really unhelpful because there is so much overlap. I.e. they are much more similar than people tend to think.

"Is the salient question here: if there are intrinsic differences should that in any way inhibit equality of opportunity to pursue the kind of life you choose to live?"

Indeed Dervel.

While 3 legs may be stable, it does not guarantee the top will be level

But that isn't what the question was.

The female respondents predominantly took the erroneous statement about the quaility of the table , that it wobbled, at face value.

So Buffy's questions about "is it caused by the table or the floor " are irrelevant as they also take the statement at face value.

But that's the trouble I have at work - people men will do what they're told, but don't think about anything wider, like whether it's useful to have stable feet if the rest of the table is no longer useable.

that's something I have been wondering.
I am working as an construction engineer in a consultancy, in a team 50/50 male female more or less. At least 40% of women have PCOS in the team. So I wonder, are women with increased testosterone attracted to sciences more than others? or is it random.

How do you know they have PCOS? And how does that compare to the population in general?

women - theres not a vas deferens

PCOS seems to affect up to about 20% of the population, so 40% would be much higher. But this sample is likely to be small and thus it could just be a statistical fluke

If there are, say, 50 women, then the difference is statistically significant.
If there are 15 or less women, then it's not significant at 95% confidence level.
Rough statistics.

I got the question right. But I had read the article up to where it asks about the 3 legged table but then went off to attend to something in the kitchen and as I thought about it, it seemed to me that having asked about the 4 legged table that the 3 legged question was probably a trick question. The only 'trick' it seemed to me was that a 3 legged table didn't wobble in the first place. It was only then I asked myself if that might be so.

So had the question only asked about a 3 legged table without mentioning the first table, I'm not so sure its non-wobbling nature would have occurred to me.

Didactylos - nice one !