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As women have more equal opportunity, the more their preferences differ from men

science.sciencemag.org

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Re: As women have more equal opportunity, the more their preferences differ from men

#51

Post by Jweb_Guru »

js8 wrote: post #48
torben-friis wrote: post #37

I wonder how it adjusts for culturally pushed gender differences. Women could have the same opportunities as men but be expected to have different tastes, be subjected to different experiences growing up, etc. which could affect their choices in latter life.

I don't understand why people care so much whether preferences are biological or cultural. (Well, I understand it if we assume they are being dishonest, so assuming that something is not biological allows them to claim that it can be changed to whatever they think is morally superior. The debate whether being gay is cultural is a good example.) If I am given a true freedom to choose, to decide according to my prefere…

Because in one case, things "must" be this way and there is no reason for introspection--given exactly equal opportunities, both groups would choose the same thing they are already choosing. In the other, that's not the case at all, and it may be necessary to (for example) pass legal reforms in an effort to make sure that both groups actually are free to choose.

Re: As women have more equal opportunity, the more their preferences differ from men

#52

Post by jernfrost »

I am highly sceptical to this study. Does anyone have a list of what they measured as differences and how they did it?

The reason I am a sceptic is because as a Scandinavian I notice easily how much more macho men are in less gender equal societies and how much more feminine the women are.

I don’t think it is an accident that the world’s top female boxer is Norwegian rather than say Italian.

I do there is something to the equality paradox but I suspect it is more complex than this research suggests.

60% of published papers in life sciences turns out to be rubbish. So statistically speaking one should have a natural scepticism to any bold claims.

Re: As women have more equal opportunity, the more their preferences differ from men

#53

Post by odmkSeijin »

DoreenMichele wrote: post #15
starbeast wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the double speak comes from a desire for a definitive taxonomy where none exists. If we just look at sex rather than gender, I can count five sexual options that mammalian biology likes to throw darts at; 1 - male genitalia 2 - female genitalia 3 - male and female genitalia 4 - no genitalia 5 - make shit up wholesale Now, only the first two generally go on to produce offspring and the last one usually doesn't…

Your remarks on the sex thing don't actually fit with what I've read from (people I understand to be) actual scientists specializing in this stuff, which basically boils down to "You know that binary male-female classification? We basically made that up and nature didn't ask our opinion, kind of like how the platypus fails to conveniently fit our made up categories for animals because our made up categories and menta…

DoreenMichele, I completely agree with your science processes. Someone recently tried to tell me that humans are a two-armed species. I laughed in their face. I said, haven't you ever heard of Einstein's theory of relativity? SOME people are born with 2 arms, but some people are born with no arms, some people are born with a partial arm, and some people are born with many arms. Humans having 2 arms is just a made up category that is convenient to fit with our mental model. Or it's just some stupid statistical process.

Re: As women have more equal opportunity, the more their preferences differ from men

#55

Post by DoreenMichele »

skookumchuck wrote: post #40
watwut wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> They want to be who they believe they should be, which, at least based on the 6 metrics I see in the paper, seems to be generally nicer people. My impression is that there is a lot more social pressure on women to be nice in western countries and especially united states. To the point that expectation is sometimes that women dont swear etc. I dont think I encountered that in Slavic countries that much despite them…

> expectation is sometimes that women dont swear etc. FWIW, a woman swearing definitely lowers her attractiveness, at least to me, by quite a bit.

For another data point: I'm an American woman. I swear like a sailor. Sadly, this has failed to be man-repellent.

If only! My life would be vastly simpler if my foul mouth just got me left the hell alone by men.

Also, everything I have read and experienced suggests that other women are a huge source of social pressure on female behavior, possibly far more than male sexual predilections.

An actress once said "I dress for women. I undress for men." That seems to sum certain things up nicely in a nutshell.

Re: As women have more equal opportunity, the more their preferences differ from men

#57

Post by atoav »

The question is: What follows from that difference?

Should a society treat a subset of the population different (in a positive or negative way) because on average they act different, because they have a different story to tell, because they had a different place throughout history and society?

Isn't planfully treating a subset of the population different reproducing that difference?

Isn't not treating a subset of the population different against justice in a historical sense?

Should we treat different what seems different to us? Should we ignore the difference, essentially becoming ignorant to what lead to the difference?

Hard questions. A better approach might be to look at the individual. If you presume things about people because of traits they had no control about, you are probably a better person if you keep this presumtions to yourself, even if parts of these seem to match at times. In the end, often these differences don't really matter that much, especially a Nerd community should realize this: a nerd from a never heard of minority might be much closer to you in spirit, than most of your neighbourhood with traits matching yours.

The thing is, presumtions can (and often will) get in the way of seeing the complexity of the individual that is on the other side. If you are not in a war zone where ignoring presumtions ("this looks like the enemy") will get you killed, you can usually afford that luxury.

Re: As women have more equal opportunity, the more their preferences differ from men

#58

Post by tralarpa »

jernfrost wrote: post #52

I am highly sceptical to this study. Does anyone have a list of what they measured as differences and how they did it? The reason I am a sceptic is because as a Scandinavian I notice easily how much more macho men are in less gender equal societies and how much more feminine the women are. I don’t think it is an accident that the world’s top female boxer is Norwegian rather than say Italian. I do there is something t…

> 60% of published papers in life sciences turns out to be rubbish

Research in life science:

- Very difficult to conduct repeatable experiments of sufficient size

- Lot of pressure because of lack of funding (e.g. hard to get money through projects with industry like engineers)

- Done by people with problems with logical thinking

- Done by people who apply methods (data analysis, statistics,...) without understanding them

The perfect combination...

I welcome all downvotes.

Re: As women have more equal opportunity, the more their preferences differ from men

#59

Post by atoav »

starbeast wrote: post #9
retrogradeorbit wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Did you not get the memo? Gender is purely a social construct. It has no biological underpinning. One can identify as any gender they feel. And then they are that gender. Thus any "differences" you may think you perceive between genders are not real. They are purely cosmetic.

Did you not get the memo? All social constructs are biological. All behaviour has a biological underpinning, how could it be otherwise?

Similar to the relation between hardware and software?

Re: As women have more equal opportunity, the more their preferences differ from men

#60

Post by icebraining »

PeterisP wrote: post #21

Equality of opportunities and equality of outcomes are incompatible as long as the source groups differ in any meaningful way, even "just" in preferences, which is a very big factor in choice of profession. In order to get equality of outcomes, you would need to enforce inequality of opportunities.

The problem is distinguishing the two. People (and not just women) feel understandably cross when they come across real obstacles - which may seem very subtle to others - preventing them from choosing a path, and then hear someone else say it's just a result of preferences.
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