An interesting difference between men and women

[cerebus23]

Its boils down to what biological and whats cultural?

Generally speaking i do not think it incorrect to say that men fish less for "poor you" or i "feel your pain" but in society in general doing so is considered "not being manly."

Men are more logic based however, women are more feelings based, that is a general fact, and is a biological fact, men handle immediate stresses better, but women handle long term stress better, women are better communicators than men. mean handle maths better than women in gereral (except me i utterly hate and fail at maths).

Yes we can dig up men friends that are more emo, we can find girls that are more logical.

As we move forward more and more science is discovering the very real, very biological, suprising difference between men and women. Men and women visually see things different even, men pick out patterns over colors, women pick out colors and not so much patterns. Men are more spatially aware and well natural about it, millions of years of hunting and gathering, women less so, they were more rearing children and taking care of the camp than out hunting mammoths or saber toothed tigers.

You are what you do, and to a lesser extent what we eat and drink. But yes nature shows you perform a task often enough and your generations perform the same tasks you will evolve and adapt to do those tasks more efficiently and better over time.

We lived through the bad old days of feminism people trying to convince people, that we should be gender neutral and erase the "cultural" biases between the sexes, except many biases are built in are programmed into us though millions of years of evolution and survival.

Stereotypes are so damn lazy though and overused i can see why alot of people kneejerk and just torpedo the thing out of general contempt for them.

Men and women are different. Neither is better than the other, each strategies works for them, its been tested and worked on by nature over 10 of millions of years, and without the other sex neither of us would get anywhere.

 

[Decessa]

As we move forward more and more science is discovering the very real, very biological, suprising difference between men and women. Men and women visually see things different even, men pick out patterns over colors, women pick out colors and not so much patterns. Men are more spatially aware and well natural about it, millions of years of hunting and gathering, women less so, they were more rearing children and taking care of the camp than out hunting mammoths or saber toothed tigers.

How about some citations there. The gendered division of labor is likely a more recent phenomena of our race than you are claiming (http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2006/12/061207-sex-humans.html). Tribes were often egalitarian: hunting often required many members of the tribe (such as a group to walk the woods to drive prey to a clearing where the rest of the tribe waited), and men were just as likely to contribute to child-rearing and gathering (I thought it interesting that you attributed this to the men of the group, as it is often listed as one of the "women's roles" in hunter-gatherer societies). It wasn't until over-hunted lands drove hunting parties out for weeks that the gendered division of labor began to come about, later reinforced through religion and government policy.

This is the reason natural law language is a detriment to these discussions. I am not saying that there are no biological differences between men and women, but attributing a specific behavior to said biological differences is useless to the overall discourse.

 

[cerebus23]

And i did not use absolutes i said in general men would do the more hunter gatherer roles, and women would naturally having to carry a child to labor and give birth would be more camp bound.

How our brains process different things and priortizes different things among the sexes supports that. while not set in stone men always out hunting, women always rearing children it happens and has happened enough to evolve our brains to handle those tasks and to specialize those tasks to a great extent.

Granted some it could be tied patriarchial society and the oppression of women, but those are all fairly modern things in the last 10,000 years sexism and racism, in a more tribal setting it really does not make sense to oppress your women, they have to carry and help raise children, they have duties and tasks that important to the survival of your tribe.

 

[Decessa]

Perhaps then my issue is in the use of evolve here. Human behaviors are not evolutionary artifacts, they are cultural ones. They are learned and reinforced socially, there is little to no physiological change involved.
While this is ultimately a semantic difference, it is an important one to note. While evolution is a natural process, our social system is entirely man-made. Though one could potentially make light of a "social evolution", the ways our social systems have changed over time bear little similarity to the iterative evolutionary process.

 

[NiPah]

I'm sorry mate, "sounded so true" is not acceptable when your trying to make sweeping generalizations. If all your using to back up your reasoning I can invalidate your entire claim by saying "that doesn't sound true", and back it up with what a few of my friends said a few weeks ago.

 

[cerebus23]

Perhaps then my issue is in the use of evolve here. Human behaviors are not evolutionary artifacts, they are cultural ones. They are learned and reinforced socially, there is little to no physiological change involved.
While this is ultimately a semantic difference, it is an important one to note. While evolution is a natural process, our social system is entirely man-made. Though one could potentially make light of a "social evolution", the ways our social systems have changed over time bear little similarity to the iterative evolutionary process.

when there are biological difference in how our brains process perceive and use information that is evolution not cultural, you cannot culturally rewire a brain or how we process things with it. you can modifify individual behaviors through any number of means.

Genetics have found that we have soft markers in our dna that encode behavior across generations. these markers last over several generations, if proceeding generations pursue the same behavoirs, those markers are strengthened, if they are not used they will eventually be removed out of our dna, that is dna evolving.

I dunno how you take evolution out of the equation when talking about how our body and brains are hardwired to certain tendencies. its the core of how things work in nature.

 

[Decessa]

In that learning is itself is a constant rewiring of the brain, I tend to disagree. There is nothing natural about modern society. While evolution took us to a point where we could apply meaning to the things around us, the meaning we apply is made up of cultural values and beliefs. That meaning is taught, reevaluated by the next generation, and then recreated and reinforced or reexamined through interactions with new groups. Evolution was taken out of the human development equation as soon as we learned to shape our environment to fit our needs, i.e. agriculture. With our survival no longer tied to "luck" in the hunt, social order began to develop.

I am not completely disagreeing with your reasoning, mind you. As this is primarily "nature vs nurture", I think it is safe to assume that we both recognize that these two are not mutually exclusive, as the majority of arguments surrounding them are made of a little of both. My issue here is that invoking a natural argument stifles any following debate and allows people to wash their hands of an issue, which is where the OP comes in. It is an opinion backed up only by personal experience, transposed on to 51% of the world's population. It is an ethnocentric argument, based only on local values and customs, but argued as if it is based on innate, tangible differences between men and women.

 

[cerebus23]

I guess i would argue that brains are more culturally or society molded, but dna is evolved as behaviors get attached to it.

But i do not agree that evolution has stopped, as time goes on more people have lost their appendix as the years have gone on, wisdom teeth are also being slowly phased out since we do not use or need them for much of anything.

So while i agree that we have insulated ourselves to a degree that makes us less likely to adapt to conditions in our climate controlled areas, shopping malls, and so forth it did not halt our evolution, even if that evolution is going to make us all fat lazy couch potatoes it is going to happen due to the conditions we expose ourselves to.

 

[glider4]

I honestly usually do a bit of both. Though I honestly try not to gain much sympathy as it can look like your desparate for attention but despite what the feminists will tell you. Males and females are different. I honestly don't really know why there is a thread about this

 

[BlueKenja]

[Citation Needed]
[Replication Needed]
[Causal Link Study Needed]

Why would he have to provide a citation if its his own hypothesis/experience?

If I say it rains a lot lately do I have to quote respected meteorologists?

Using the Scientific Method is admirable but don't you think you're taking it a bit too far now?

Oh and Replication can be obtained in exactly the manner OP uses, by asking others if they notice the same phenomena

...that's not what replication means in scientific terms...

And yes he does have to provide published sources as evidence for making sweeping sex/gender difference claims.

 

[Ikajo]

Why are you all making this so simple? Women whine and men look for solutions? Doesn't that depend on the issue at hand. If I'm having a hard time, like looking for a job or the train is late or disliking a teacher or having health issues, I don't really need advice or solve a problem. Those kinds of problems usually doesn't have the kind of solution you can give advice on.
But if my problem is my computer not working or program not doing what I want or a recipe is not turning our right or my child is sick and I don't know why or I don't know how to fix something that broke. Then you may need advice or be offered a solution. But if I need to find a job and are searching and not get any, maybe I need sympathy. Not someone trying to tell me how I should try to find a job. Because I most probably already know.

If I come across a problem, I try to solve it. If I can't I ask for help or try till I actually solve it. If I have a problem that I can't solve and can't ask anyone else to solve it for me because there is no real solution to the problem (yes, they exist. Non-solvable problems do indeed exist). Then I might need someone to just talk with, to cope with the harsh reality or just to not mulling over things on my own. In these cases, being a man or a woman doesn't matter.

 

[Something Amyss]

Why are you all making this so simple? Women whine and men look for solutions?

Oddly enough, it looks like he's looking for a quick fix.

Self-fulfilling prophecy? Irony? Amusing no matter what.

 

[Adventurer2626]

Trying to make anything like this stick is sketchy at best, since non-biological differences between men and women are pretty nebulous at best. There is definitely enough anecdotal evidence for this (particularly in relationships) to be a thing. I just don't have a handle on the numbers; everyone is slightly different from the next person. I'd go so far as to say this a common difference between sexes but not a guaranteed one. I think it sticks the majority of the time. Why? Beats me. It's probably the result of passive behavioral evolution over centuries/millennia, reinforced by societal expectations, etc. etc. To make a long, boring, biased conversation with circular logic short: trying to quantify genders in reality terrifies me and I want nothing to do with that responsibility. I'll stick to a case by case basis.

Captcha: Dramatic chipmunk. Yes. Yes, I am.

 

[jpoon]

Hahaaa, that's a pretty funny OP, i guess I've never stopped to think of it like this but I've felt that way about my ex quite a few times. xD

 

[BNguyen]

Oh fuck off. I've seen plenty of guys play the pity party and yeah often when girl talk about an issue its also to get a solution. But hey continuing spouting your bullshit if you really need to reduce the world to a simple X or Y to understand it or need a group to shit on so you can feel better about yourself.

Hey, come on now, the OP was only asking a question and even admitted it might be a generalisation. There's no need to be rude if you disagree with him, posts like this make the forum a less pleasant place for everyone.

OT: It's not something I've particularly noticed, but then I'm not too observant about people's intentions anyway so I can't really say 100% either way.

No all he has done is put into the standard transparent form everyone uses when they want be racist, sexist, homophobic, whatever but know that it doesn't always get a positive reception and want to cover their ass. It the same as "I know not all of them are like this but man those Polynesians are lazy and stupid" (actual comment I hear about 3 days ago). As if saying it's a generalization makes it any less racist and wrong.

You do realize that someone can post a statement like the OP and not have it contain some devilish undertone to it don't you? Or are you just negative by nature?

 

[drisky]

I was taught this in my Sociology 101 class, basically showed us a video of with this idea and showing men how they can change there behavior to talk to women, no such comment on the other way around. I wish I could find the video, doing it the right way was putting on the fakeist smile of all time and calling your girl friend a "dynomite gal" (the video was made in the 90's). It was a part of a list of things that made me hate feminism at the time, before I realized feminism wasn't the problem.

 

[Erttheking]

Yeah, gonna have to call bullcrap on this one. When I'm feeling blue and I'm talking to my friends about it, I'm not expecting a logical solution to the problem, I want to get a weight off of my shoulders.

 

[lord.jeff]

What if you are telling people your problems not for sympathy or a solution? Most of the times I air an issue it's so people are aware of limitations I'm facing, for example going to hang out with friends and I tell them I hurt my leg so they know I wont be up for a lot of walking.

 

[The Night Angel]

I would have to disagree with OP on this, I think that men and women are equally likely to be looking for sympathy or a solution, and often, they are in fact looking for both. At least it has been the case in my experience, but obviously across ages and cultures generalisations can be more or less applicable.