Women and men see things differently - literally. Sex difference in colour and motion perception.

[ArabellaScott]

Women see more colours than men, while men are better able to see movement.

https://www.genengnews.com/insights/why-men-and-women-see-things-differently/

'Women ... are better than men in distinguishing colors in the middle of the visual spectrum, such as shades of blue and green.
That’s because color vision depends on three types of cones, two of which are carried on the X-chromosome—L-cones that are more sensitive to the longer wavelengths of light; and S-cones, to shorter wavelengths. The third cones, M-cones, are sensitive to middle wavelengths.
“Across most of the visible spectrum, males require a slightly longer wavelength than do females in order to experience the same hue,” researchers from two City University of New York schools concluded in their study, published September 4 in Biology of Sex Differences.'

https://archive.ph/qMlq4

'....the grass is almost always greener to women than to men, to whom verdant objects appear a bit yellower.

The study also found that men are less adept at distinguishing among shades in the center of the color spectrum: blues, greens, and yellows.
Where the men shone was in detecting quick-changing details from afar, particularly by better tracking the thinner, faster-flashing bars within a bank of blinking lights.
The team puts this advantage down to neuron development in the visual cortex, which is boosted by masculine hormones. Since males are flush with testosterone, in particular, they're born with 25 percent more neurons in this brain region than females, the team noted.'

Tbh I could do without some of the increased sense of smell that middle age hormonal changes has brought.

Assuming this actually happened (which I doubt), given that transitioning cannot do anything to the genes on an x chromosomes that does not exist, most likely explanation is that as a trans person your friend had subconscious beliefs about what type of personality traits are "right" for each sex, and therefore believes some parts of himself cannot be expressed as long as he identifies as a man. In identifying as a "woman" (which is nothing to do with actually being an actual women of course, just with having the bundle of traits he projects onto "women") gives his subconscious permission to express things he has been trying to suppress, like maybe enjoying colours and patterns.

Yes, it is fun thing to look past superficial and sexist beliefs about gender to speculate on what might really be going on in the sexist mind of someone who believes so strongly in gender stereotypes that they literally have to claim to be the opposite sex to admit who they are.

Pps' explanation re larynx etc was useful and informative in response to this question.

T deepens voice somewhat but doesn't give a woman a male voice.

A tempting conclusion but probably wrong. After all, lionesses rather than lions are the main hunters, and presumably as lionesses are also XX and lions have more testosterone the same mechanisms would apply.

I like Elaine Morgan's approach of centering the mother/baby dyad when considering reasons for evolutionary traits.

Although some of her assertions are a bit out there, it's an interesting shift in focus.

So, with that in mind I can see lots of reasons that a mother with keener senses might have been evolutionarily more successful.

Yes, I wasn't denying that the female voice is changed by testosterone. I was questioning the idea that the voice is changed to be, essentially, indistinguishable from a male voice.

The information encoded in a lionesses XX is not the same as a humans.

Exactly the same? No. But the genes for colour receptors are on the X chromosome in all mammals.

So while humans may have different colour differentiation to cats, if the argument is that females of [mammal species X] have better colour perception that males of [mammal species X] because they have two X chromosomes rather than one, it would also apply to lions.

Most mammals (including cats) don't have proper colour vision because they're dichromats, so in that specific context, the X chromosomes of lions aren't relevant.

So many interesting things to consider…

Like, why, if we have super senses, aren’t women more successful in wine, food, music? And maybe, men create things that taste and smell and sound good to other men- the ones with the purchasing power.

What about art? Do men see the paintings they create differently from women? Do they miss subtleties in women’s art and therefore underrate it?

It may explain why DH couldn’t find the washing powder that I hid right at the front of the shelf, in the middle where it has always been. Obviously it was too still to be perceived.

That'll be the effect of the rose-tinted glasses!

why, if we have super senses, aren’t women more successful in wine, food, music?

Success relies on far more than ability. For a start, you have to be allowed to do it. Then you have to be allowed to do it publicly. And to be paid for it. Historically all barriers to women.

Mendelssohn. Mozart.

You're thinking of Felix and Wolfgang, aren't you? Not Fanny and Maria. In both cases the sisters composed and performed at least as well as their brothers, but it wasn't thought appropriate for them to tour or publish. Maria toured as a child prodigy - that was acceptable, but when she hit 17 and was seen as woman not child, it stopped. Fanny's compositions were published under her brother's name, not her own.

In the late 20th century approximate 5% of players in 'big name' classical orchestras were women. When they started holding blind auditions, playing behind a screen, women were almost instantly offered around 40% of the posts. An experiment with blind and barefoot auditions increased levels even more. I'll let you think about that one for a bit.

Well played!

@ThatOpenSwan - the report says they think it's the cones as a result of two X chromosomes that accounts for women's superior colour vision. Taking cross sex hormones won't alter your friend's genetic inheritance.

I am very suspicious of any study claiming it's evidence of a hunter-gatherer hypothesis. That seems awfully simplistic.

I am very suspicious of any study claiming it's evidence of a hunter-gatherer hypothesis. That seems awfully simplistic

Same. As I've said on several previous threads, 'man the hunter' is a decidedly shaky hypothesis in itself - never mind when extrapolating further.

Sure. It can give some secondary sex characteristics, some things change not at all, some change somewhat. They are male hormones so tat isn't a surprise and doesn't undermine the fact that sex doesn't change.

If visual perception differences were mainly due to hormones then we might see an effect with cross sex hormones. But it doesn't seem like that is the case.

I mean, biologists often speculate about the nature of species vision in this way. Why do monkeys have colour vision, why do dogs have fewer colours - many will point out the differernce in diet as a probably factor.

It's not surprising that they might be inclined to apply the same principles to human differernces along similar lines.

But the Man The Hunter theory is on pretty shaky ground owes more to a patriarchal view of pre-history rather than what we find in early human skeletons before agriculture, from what I've read.

In addition, those studying existing hunter gatherer societies routinely disregarded evidence of women hunting (particularly with dogs) because it didn't fit the narrative that Men Did The Important Stuff.

Your post reminds me of the book, ‘Wifedom’ by Anna Funder. Very interesting about how Orwell’s wife was so instrumental for his work. Some reckon she didn’t get a first from Oxford because she was a woman. Absolutely tragic death in her 30s from surgery for endometriosis. He was a bit of a git.

He was a bit of a git.

A very perceptive one though.

She wrote a poem called 1984 before she met him, persuaded him to change an essay to become fable (Animal Farm) and typed up and edited his work, so everyone noted it was much improved. He was good but, I think, she made him unforgettable. Yet she didn’t feel she was worth paying high rates for an operation that ultimately killed her.

He slept with prostitutes throughout the marriage, she nursed him through various ailments and he was infertile, possibly from an sti. In later life, he said he wasn’t a good husband. Very interesting book that was written as some letters were found a few years ago between Eileen (his wife) and her friend.

I have no idea which had a better perception of colour, smell or hearing though!

I love the contributions on this thread. I did a bit of this in my degrees. In some monkey species there’s massive differences between males and females vision:
https://www.nationalgeographic.com/animals/article/monkeys-humans-see-eyes-vision

If they’re hunting flashing lights on a stationary light bar…

The difference being that the diet of any given species is easily proven. Whether or not there was a sex difference in human hunting behaviour at some distant point of evolution is entirely speculative.

Thanks. I don’t think many people realise how chauvinistic prehistorians were when they dreamt up how humans divided up work in these societies. The man the hunter, woman and baby go gather is a myth. We have no evidence for it.

A lot of these studies are dodgy science. The women feel better than men had me hooting with laughter because it’s not because the test subjects were women but because their hands were softer- as in less likely to be hardened with calluses and rough skin from manual labor. You could do the exact same bad science by socio-economic class and conclude that rich people have a superior sense of feel to working class. It’s nothing to do with innate superior physiology and everything to do with how cushy an environment you live and work in.

They won't give a male person an extra X chromosome though, so it's irrelevant to this discussion