#sex based differences

A major discussion at the very centre of the gender debate, asks: why are men and women different?

Are they different because we tell them to be different? Through toys in childhood, TV in adolescence, and a continual bombardment of gender norms from society, our media, our family, our friends, from everyone.

Is our gender shaped through society, through ‘social constructivsm’?

Alternatively -

Are our gender preferences innate?

Are we born masculine or feminine; born with our gendered thinking, like we are born with our sexuality?

Are the preferences, behaviours and temperaments of men and women, part of our biology? And if so, are they immutable?

So many questions.

Well, a new study from 2018 has reopened the debate.

Showing that the more equal and wealthy a society, the more men and women grow apart in their behaviour.

That’s right.

The wealthier and more equal the country, the *more* its men engage in risk taking behaviour, and the more altruistic its women become, for example.

It’s an annoying spanner in the works for the social constructivists, and feminists, who insist we are all the same blank slates – and are simply brainwashed, or coloured in, by society. But are we?

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Sources:

Scientific American: https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/when-times-are-good-the-gender-gap-grows/

Study: https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.aas9899

Study:

Abstract

Preferences concerning time, risk, and social interactions systematically shape human behavior and contribute to differential economic and social outcomes between women and men. We present a global investigation of gender differences in six fundamental preferences. Our data consist of measures of willingness to take risks, patience, altruism, positive and negative reciprocity, and trust for 80,000 individuals in 76 representative country samples. Gender differences in preferences were positively related to economic development and gender equality. This finding suggests that greater availability of and gender-equal access to material and social resources favor the manifestation of gender-differentiated preferences across countries.

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More studies:

Abstract

Men's and women's personalities appear to differ in several respects. Social role theories of development assume gender differences result primarily from perceived gender roles, gender socialization and sociostructural power differentials. As a consequence, social role theorists expect gender differences in personality to be smaller in cultures with more gender egalitarianism. Several large cross-cultural studies have generated sufficient data for evaluating these global personality predictions. Empirically, evidence suggests gender differences in most aspects of personality-Big Five traits, Dark Triad traits, self-esteem, subjective well-being, depression and values-are conspicuously larger in cultures with more egalitarian gender roles, gender socialization and sociopolitical gender equity. Similar patterns are evident when examining objectively measured attributes such as tested cognitive abilities and physical traits such as height and blood pressure. Social role theory appears inadequate for explaining some of the observed cultural variations in men's and women's personalities. Evolutionary theories regarding ecologically-evoked gender differences are described that may prove more useful in explaining global variation in human personality.

Abstract

Using data from over 200,000 participants from 53 nations, I examined the cross-cultural consistency of sex differences for four traits: extraversion, agreeableness, neuroticism, and male-versus-female-typical occupational preferences. Across nations, men and women differed significantly on all four traits (mean ds = -.15, -.56, -.41, and 1.40, respectively, with negative values indicating women scoring higher). The strongest evidence for sex differences in SDs was for extraversion (women more variable) and for agreeableness (men more variable). United Nations indices of gender equality and economic development were associated with larger sex differences in agreeableness, but not with sex differences in other traits. Gender equality and economic development were negatively associated with mean national levels of neuroticism, suggesting that economic stress was associated with higher neuroticism. Regression analyses explored the power of sex, gender equality, and their interaction to predict men's and women's 106 national trait means for each of the four traits. Only sex predicted means for all four traits, and sex predicted trait means much more strongly than did gender equality or the interaction between sex and gender equality. These results suggest that biological factors may contribute to sex differences in personality and that culture plays a negligible to small role in moderating sex differences in personality.

Abstract

Previous research suggested that sex differences in personality traits are larger in prosperous, healthy, and egalitarian cultures in which women have more opportunities equal with those of men. In this article, the authors report cross-cultural findings in which this unintuitive result was replicated across samples from 55 nations (N = 17,637). On responses to the Big Five Inventory, women reported higher levels of neuroticism, extraversion, agreeableness, and conscientiousness than did men across most nations. These findings converge with previous studies in which different Big Five measures and more limited samples of nations were used. Overall, higher levels of human development--including long and healthy life, equal access to knowledge and education, and economic wealth--were the main nation-level predictors of larger sex differences in personality. Changes in men's personality traits appeared to be the primary cause of sex difference variation across cultures. It is proposed that heightened levels of sexual dimorphism result from personality traits of men and women being less constrained and more able to naturally diverge in developed nations. In less fortunate social and economic conditions, innate personality differences between men and women may be attenuated.

Abstract

We investigated sex differences in 473,260 adolescents’ aspirations to work in things-oriented (e.g., mechanic), people-oriented (e.g., nurse), and STEM (e.g., mathematician) careers across 80 countries and economic regions using the 2018 Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA). We analyzed student career aspirations in combination with student achievement in mathematics, reading, and science, as well as parental occupations and family wealth. In each country and region, more boys than girls aspired to a things-oriented or STEM occupation and more girls than boys to a people-oriented occupation. These sex differences were larger in countries with a higher level of women’s empowerment. We explain this counter-intuitive finding through the indirect effect of wealth. Women’s empowerment is associated with relatively high levels of national wealth and this wealth allows more students to aspire to occupations they are intrinsically interested in. Implications for better understanding the sources of sex differences in career aspirations and associated policy are discussed.

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There's no "patriarchy." Men and women are just different.

Hell, here's four studies of primates that show comparable sex-linked tendencies, preferences, habits and instincts as humans:

Sex differences in rhesus monkey toy preferences parallel those of children: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/18452921/

Toy story: Why do monkey and human males prefer trucks?: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2755553/

Young female chimpanzees treat sticks as dolls: Growing evidence of biological basis for gender-specific play in humans: https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2010/12/101220121109.htm

Sex differences in response to children's toys in nonhuman primates: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S1090513802001071?via%3Dihub

Social constructivism is complete horseshit. Not only is "Patriarchy Theory" an explicit denial of evolution, but a full-blown conspiracy theory.

https://www.realityslaststand.com/p/the-new-evolution-deniers-in-retrospect

We don't ask the same questions about tigers, peafowl or bees.

Sex-based behaviors (gender) are real. We can see them in other primates in a way that mirror ourselves.

Nobody wonders whether the peacock grows feathers and shows off for the females because of social expectations.

Nobody wonders whether the female mantis eats her mate because she's "fIgHtInG tEh PaTrIaRcHy!"

There are very real human sex-based averages that are derived from the evolution of our species, the pressures it has been under, the variations that have been most successful, and what each sex has needed of the other.

This means that, for example, boys are more inclined towards thing-based activities - careers, toys, pasttimes - while girls are more inclined towards people-oriented activities... on average. This is replicated cross-cultures.

Of course there are girls who want to fix trucks for a living, and boys who want to be kindergarten teachers. They are still girls and boys who will grow up to be women and men. And nobody should get in their way.

What you like doesn't define what you are. But what you are is still statistically significant, because it offers societal-wide information. The society-wide trend doesn't predict or define individuals, and individuals don't negate a society-wide trend. Which many people don't seem to understand.

Here's a good example. Average intelligence of women and men is the same.

While the means are the same, male intelligence is more variable, so you'll find more highly intelligent men at the higher end, and more really stupid men at the lower end. You possibly know at least one highly intelligent woman who is smarter than most of the men you know. That doesn't change the societal-wide trend.

This is simply a fact. You can get angry or offended, but it doesn't stop being true.

And in a similar way, men and women having different average interests, tendencies and behaviors - e.g. women tend to be more socially-oriented, men tend to be more action-oriented - makes sense in the light of evolution and the demands and pressures our primitive ancestors were subjected to by the natural world and the battle for success. And the demands males and females put upon each other.

Nobody gets angry when we mention that humans are prone to pareidolia - interpreting or perceiving meaning where it isn't there, such as a smiling or pouting "face" in the front end of a car. Evolutionarily, it makes sense. In the same way, noticing that sex-based differences are real might make people angry or offended, but that offence doesn't matter as far as what is real.

The idea that "gender is a social construct," then is nonsense. It's a denial of evolution itself, a denial of the way we came to be as a species. To suggest that the same tendencies we see in our primate ancestors - e.g. maternal instinct in female chimps carrying sticks - is some kind of social brainwashing requires believing that those tendencies disappeared from humanity's evolutionary line, then re-emerged, identically, as socially imposed roles.

That's creationism. Actually it's worse. Xian creationism simply asserts that everything is as it always was. Everything was created in its current form. Gender creationists must assert that humanity wound backwards to a blank slate state, then had the wherewithal to form a conspiracy of oppression to reinstitute the same vestigial traits back into society. Oh, and this happened either sufficiently far back in our development to precede or dispersal throughout the lands of Earth, or coincidentally every society on Earth came up with it more recently. Gender social constructivism is evolution-denying creationism.

This level of magical thinking makes me long for the days where Xians rambled about the laws of thermodynamics that they don't understand. The talking snake and donkey seem almost reasonable.

The domains that produce this kind of thinking are not science-based, they're political and ideological, such as Gender Studies. People in these fields don't study biology, they don't study demography, they don't study anthropology. They don't even study basic statistics.

Feminist theory, which is where "gender is a social construct" was really incubated as the justification for patriarchy theory, is not scientific, and is opinion (grievance)-based, not evidence based. One of the most tragic examples of this is the John/Joan case, where David Reimer was raised as a girl after a botched circumcision.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Reimer

Finally, on 14 March 1980, Reimer's parents told him the truth about his gender reassignment, following advice from Reimer's endocrinologist and psychiatrist. At 14, having been informed of his past by his father, Reimer decided to assume a male gender identity, calling himself David. He underwent treatment to reverse the reassignment, including testosterone injections, a double mastectomy, and phalloplasty operations.

[..]

His case came to international attention in 1997 when he told his story to Milton Diamond, an academic sexologist who persuaded Reimer to allow him to report the outcome in order to dissuade physicians from treating other infants similarly. Soon after, Reimer went public with his story and John Colapinto published a widely disseminated and influential account in Rolling Stone magazine in December 1997. The article won the National Magazine Award for Reporting.

This was later expanded into The New York Times best-selling biography As Nature Made Him: The Boy Who Was Raised as a Girl (2000), in which Colapinto described how—contrary to Money's reports—when living as Brenda, Reimer did not identify as a girl. He was ostracized and bullied by peers (who dubbed him "cavewoman"), and neither frilly dresses nor female hormones made him feel female.

Human nature is not as malleable as some people would like you to believe. You are a sexed being. How you "identify" can't change what you are. That doesn't mean you can't do what you want, express yourself how you want, but you are what you are.

This is only controversial to the people who want to push the story of humans being infinitely moldable, existing as divine gender thetans imprisoned in vulgar meat bodies.

Now, it is true that some of these tendencies and behaviors will tend to be limited or shaped by the culture of the society. But they're not constructed wholesale. For example, Japanese society is highly structured around honor. So male and female behaviors will tend to be expressed through those norms; male aggression and female agreeableness may take unique culturally influenced forms. But they're not created by them. Societies which have different pressures - e.g. in the freezing north regions of North America, vs the arid deserts of Africa - will unsurprisingly produce different cultural expectations upon men and women. Recognizing that isn't a form of bigotry, it's an acknowledgement of reality.

There's a reason stereotypes exist - because there is an element of truth in there, even if it's a tiny seed. If there wasn't, we wouldn't be able to recognize or apply them. They exist because humans are prone to cognitive shortcuts, as we have a lot of information to process and making choices or decisions doesn't always allow one to sit down and think things through methodically. Our ancestors wouldn't have had the time, and probably wouldn't have had the cognitive power.

"Girls like dolls, boys like trucks," is a very dirty shorthand. At its core is a demonstrable truth regarding societal-wide averages and tendencies that takes several paragraphs to explain more accurately (and some people will still be determined to be pissed off, no matter how you frame it). But stereotypes are not all we are, and there's no reason not to acknowledge them, but put them aside, or try to. And certainly no reason to use them to structure society itself, "fixing" girls who like trucks and boys who like dolls.

I don't know if that answers your question. Suffice to say that just as a scientific view of the world makes a god unnecessary, a scientific view of the world make social constructivism (postmodern creationism) unnecessary. We can explain the world without resorting to magic or conspiracies.

Abstract

Previous research suggested that sex differences in personality traits are larger in prosperous, healthy, and egalitarian cultures in which women have more opportunities equal with those of men. In this article, the authors report cross-cultural findings in which this unintuitive result was replicated across samples from 55 nations (N = 17,637). On responses to the Big Five Inventory, women reported higher levels of neuroticism, extraversion, agreeableness, and conscientiousness than did men across most nations. These findings converge with previous studies in which different Big Five measures and more limited samples of nations were used. Overall, higher levels of human development--including long and healthy life, equal access to knowledge and education, and economic wealth--were the main nation-level predictors of larger sex differences in personality. Changes in men's personality traits appeared to be the primary cause of sex difference variation across cultures. It is proposed that heightened levels of sexual dimorphism result from personality traits of men and women being less constrained and more able to naturally diverge in developed nations. In less fortunate social and economic conditions, innate personality differences between men and women may be attenuated.

Continued: https://sci-hub.hkvisa.net/10.1037/0022-3514.94.1.168

Abstract

Using data from over 200,000 participants from 53 nations, I examined the cross-cultural consistency of sex differences for four traits: extraversion, agreeableness, neuroticism, and male-versus-female-typical occupational preferences. Across nations, men and women differed significantly on all four traits (mean ds = -.15, -.56, -.41, and 1.40, respectively, with negative values indicating women scoring higher). The strongest evidence for sex differences in SDs was for extraversion (women more variable) and for agreeableness (men more variable). United Nations indices of gender equality and economic development were associated with larger sex differences in agreeableness, but not with sex differences in other traits. Gender equality and economic development were negatively associated with mean national levels of neuroticism, suggesting that economic stress was associated with higher neuroticism. Regression analyses explored the power of sex, gender equality, and their interaction to predict men's and women's 106 national trait means for each of the four traits. Only sex predicted means for all four traits, and sex predicted trait means much more strongly than did gender equality or the interaction between sex and gender equality. These results suggest that biological factors may contribute to sex differences in personality and that culture plays a negligible to small role in moderating sex differences in personality.

Continued: https://sci-hub.hkvisa.net/10.1007/s10508-008-9380-7

Abstract

Men's and women's personalities appear to differ in several respects. Social role theories of development assume gender differences result primarily from perceived gender roles, gender socialization and sociostructural power differentials. As a consequence, social role theorists expect gender differences in personality to be smaller in cultures with more gender egalitarianism. Several large cross-cultural studies have generated sufficient data for evaluating these global personality predictions. Empirically, evidence suggests gender differences in most aspects of personality-Big Five traits, Dark Triad traits, self esteem, subjective well-being, depression and values-are conspicuously larger in cultures with more egalitarian gender roles, gender socialization and sociopolitical gender equity. Similar patterns are evident when examining objectively measured attributes such as tested cognitive abilities and physical traits such as height and blood pressure. Social role theory appears inadequate for explaining some of the observed cultural variations in men's and women's personalities. Evolutionary theories regarding ecologically-evoked gender differences are described that may prove more useful in explaining global variation in human personality.

Continued: https://sci-hub.hkvisa.net/10.1002/ijop.12265

==

In the world of Blank Slatism, men and women are regarded as essentially interchangeable. Their desires, preferences, ambitions, and differences are only artificially imposed through socialization and "oppression" (i.e. tEh pAtRiArChY). Women aren't actually more maternal because it makes sense evolutionarily, but because they've been tricked into it. The differences between men and women are given as prima facie proof of "oppression." Or, more specifically, the oppression by men of women. This necessarily means that the more egalitarian a society, the more "the same" men and women should be.

Except, the exact opposite is true. In reality, the more freedom, the more equality is available, the more opportunity for sex-based differences to significantly diverge and magnify. When subsistence pressures are alleviated, other diverging priorities and motivations such as personal fulfilment or upward mobility can be pursued instead. Sex-differences attenuate (narrow) in less egalitarian societies. And this is replicated again and again and again.

To people who recognize humans as a species of the animal kingdom and who don't deny evolution, this is obvious and uncontroversial.