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Taking Sex Differences in Personality Seriously (2019)

blogs.scientificamerican.com

51–60 of 199 posts

Re: Taking Sex Differences in Personality Seriously (2019)

#51
post #7

Is there anything in real life which you divide in two groups you wouldn’t get differences in some metrics on average? I’ve never heard anybody who thought that there was no differences in women and men behaviours on average.

Many many people claim there is no inherent difference in men and women above the neck, and that any observed difference is purely culturally caused.

By extension, it could be eliminated in a single generated given total control of the socialisation and schooling process.

This is not a meme or a rare view - Steven Pinker wrote a book countering this worldview 20 years ago.

Re: Taking Sex Differences in Personality Seriously (2019)

#52
post #11
post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, but what this article is stating, is that those differences you pointed out being connected to gender, are actually due to the sex of the individual, not due to the gender an individual chooses to identify with.

Where I came from, this notion is basically non-existent. I meant sex. And also, the article didn’t state anything about gender. There is a specific footnote about this.

Many languages don't even have a word separating the idea of gender and sex.

Re: Taking Sex Differences in Personality Seriously (2019)

#53
post #11
post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, but what this article is stating, is that those differences you pointed out being connected to gender, are actually due to the sex of the individual, not due to the gender an individual chooses to identify with.

Where I came from, this notion is basically non-existent. I meant sex. And also, the article didn’t state anything about gender. There is a specific footnote about this.

Also in my language. The adjective both for identifying the sex and the gender of someone, is the same.

Re: Taking Sex Differences in Personality Seriously (2019)

#54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What changed your levels or are you just doing experiments?

I wonder if experimentally doing this is reversible. Feels like Banks's Culture. Could be interesting to try, to get a feel for the differences in perspective GP reports.

Some doctor experimented by dosing themselves with progesterone, and found that after a few days it increased their libido significantly, but is completely reversible otherwise.

Depending on method of administration, changes occur sooner or later. A common one is "monotherapy" with only estrogen injections in oils which get released over time.

Re: Taking Sex Differences in Personality Seriously (2019)

#55
post #44

In the past 12 months I’ve gone from having normal male levels of testosterone and estrogen to having normal female levels of both. It’s truly amazing and wonderful that we can do this, and I’ve learned so much from the experience. It’s hard to describe the changes precisely, but I’m finding that women make more sense to me and are more interesting to talk to, while I have a lower tolerance for men trying to act toug…

> I've also started experiencing monthly cycles where for about one week a month I feel more tired and weepy like I could cry very easily This sounds like wishful thinking to me. In women, the periodic mood changes happen during the luteal phase of the menstrual cycle, and coincide with the rise in progesterone that is triggered by ovulation. Males don't have ovaries, so do not ovulate, and thus cannot experience the…

It depends on the method of administration of HRT, some methods do show fluctuations similar to those of cis women, e.g. estradiol valerate/enanthate etc.

Re: Taking Sex Differences in Personality Seriously (2019)

#56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I hope more people do this because for me it feels really right, and I find it beautiful. It’s also helping me understand women more. I think our society would benefit from a better understanding of the experiences of the opposite sex, and people who do this can help share this with others so we all have a better understanding. I don’t see any downsides to more people doing this.

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Re: Taking Sex Differences in Personality Seriously (2019)

#57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's a similar phenomenon you might encounter in language: if you have a text, and you sample one random letter at a time from it, it turns out not to be very difficult to determine what language the text is written in. Does the letter 'i' exist in French? Does it exist outside French? Sure, but nevertheless you can rule French in or out based on how often you sample a letter and get 'i'. French uses the same 'i'…

Same kind of thing works with counting the frequency of particular digits (n-digit analysis) in a given position for an integer or decimal. Especially for the higher order decimal digits there's a far-from-random distribution that you can use to infer whether there's been any tampering, given enough values to study.

To understand the mechanism, imagine we accounted in binary instead of decimal. What are the odds the first digit of an entry is a 1?

Re: Taking Sex Differences in Personality Seriously (2019)

#58

In the past 12 months I’ve gone from having normal male levels of testosterone and estrogen to having normal female levels of both. It’s truly amazing and wonderful that we can do this, and I’ve learned so much from the experience. It’s hard to describe the changes precisely, but I’m finding that women make more sense to me and are more interesting to talk to, while I have a lower tolerance for men trying to act toug…

No real comment/question from me, but thank you for sharing your experience!

Re: Taking Sex Differences in Personality Seriously (2019)

#59
post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I've also started experiencing monthly cycles where for about one week a month I feel more tired and weepy like I could cry very easily This sounds like wishful thinking to me. In women, the periodic mood changes happen during the luteal phase of the menstrual cycle, and coincide with the rise in progesterone that is triggered by ovulation. Males don't have ovaries, so do not ovulate, and thus cannot experience the…

I agree with this, although I suspect most of what Taylor reports is true and not "placebo", as it matches other reporting from people who are chemically transitioning. The "monthly cycle" thing is not usually reported. Not that I'm saying that isn't truly your experience :)

> I agree with this, although I suspect most of what Taylor reports is true and not "placebo", as it matches other reporting from people who are chemically transitioning.

Certainly I do not doubt that they have recently started enjoying romantic comedies, human interest stories, sewing, cooking and not getting into arguments about racism, but I am skeptical that these are caused by externally-induced hormonal changes, rather than correlating as part of a broader set of intentional gender-transitional changes.

Re: Taking Sex Differences in Personality Seriously (2019)

#60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why would you hope that more people will do this? Do you see any possible downsides at the individual or societal level?

I hope more people do this because for me it feels really right, and I find it beautiful. It’s also helping me understand women more. I think our society would benefit from a better understanding of the experiences of the opposite sex, and people who do this can help share this with others so we all have a better understanding. I don’t see any downsides to more people doing this.

Obviously the commitment is massive, but I would love to gender flip for a year or so.

It's a bit sci-fi, but the way you described it is so beautiful, I'd love to better under the complete richness and beauty of the human experience from both sides, even if only temporarily.

I'm sure the world would be a better place if all had the chance to experience both sides and then chose.

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