Because it’s easier to argue men (and more generally society) owe something to women if you can claim the difference between men and women is of men’s own making, not a biological fact out of men’s control.
It’s only legitimate if you believe in the concept of a historical patriarchy that held women back. Things are more nuanced than the whole history of humanity being one big Taliban tent.
If it’s of men’s own making but it’s not a biological fact out of men’s control, what is it? A biological fact that can be controlled?
The study you’re referring to I believe is about risk taking and not rationality.
On average women make better fund managers but the best and worst are almost all male. This is an interesting phenomenon that shows up often in academic grades to IQ.
No doubt, and that nuance includes women’s place being considered in the tent, or the kitchen, at some times in some cultures. Not only that, but not none of that, either
Personally, I lean towards average biological differences as a big part of the reason for this
Taiwan is vaunted for being progressive, the new conscription law should bring women into all roles including combat. And if not, why not?
Yeah, someone mentioned bell curves up thread, mostly overlap between men and women on most things, but clear differences in the extreme. Number of biological men carrying babies to term obviously an example of an exception
Technology has changed womens lives more than men for the better imo. And technology like most of the world was made and advanced by men.
Before modern technology. Productivity almost always had to do with physical labor of some sort in a society. Even gaining resources quickly by taking through force had to be done by men. This is just the reality, men had a higher place in society because a average man take work the fields and be more productive or work in a factory in the industrial era.
Womens role in society was based on being able to reproduce more people for productivity.
This to me is why the natural order of society was the way it was. Not some scheme men had to oppress half the population.
Agreed, things like reproductive control and knowledge economies have freed the ladies in many ways in many countries, and this is probably better for everyone
I tend to agree here, but there is the patriarchy argument that adds nuance to this. For example women being forbidden/discouraged to work in science/technology, and in cases ideas being stolen. We can’t have this discussion without that bit of honesty
Are there biological differences that also explain why so much technological innovation has cone from men? Dangerous question, better to focus on autism…
Can women contribute to technological innovation? Absolutely.
Yeah, it’s not like all the men in the world have been having secret Zoom meetings for tens of thousands of years to prganise the dreaded patriarchy. Good thing science and social development have gotten us to a place where biological differences matter less
Er, assuming there are biological differences, of course
I agree. Holding back women that are able to contribute held society back.
I was just going to say this. Modern technology allowing women and men to be productive without physical labor and focused on the accumulation of food based resources has benefited everyone. I’m in the beauty industry and our clients are mostly women and their clients are mostly women for example.
I listened to a podcast the other day that said the availability of cheap energy (Coal, Oil) has led to an exponential increase in technology and societal development in the last 150 years. Before that it was slave labor. In the next 10-30 years, fossil energy sources will become much more expensive through scarcity and we must find a way to move to sustainable and nuclear, to keep our pace of development going, and to continue to support 8 billion people.
That’s also true.
It’s sadly still true in places like Dubai.
I think people fail to appreciate what an astounding difference you can make even with a little technology. A man working flat-out, all day, can expend ~5MJ above BMR, or 1.5kWh, of which only ~20% (300Wh) will be physical work. An ox can do a lot better, but it still needs feed and care. A windmill can deliver many times that, with a better ROI. An electric motor can do it more quietly and with less fuss. IMO one of the reasons Roman society failed is that they insisted on using slave labour even when superior mechanical solutions existed.
Some of the variables that dismiss the biological argument on tech being mostly developed by men were the cultural.aspects about women being allowed to work and do certain things. This remains a fairly new evolution in “recent” human cultures. skews the numbers way too far out of whack to be able to actually draw conclusions based on biological reasons in my opinion.
This is the second time I’ve seen this story this week, but I didn’t know where to put it. It actually doesn’t belong here because they haven’t tried it both ways. The question as to whether male tears have the same effect on women, or men’s tears on men, or women on women, is being pushed back to future funding opportunities, er, study
So the article is not accurate when they state that
Because it doesnt.
Still… interesting
Nature? in the world of mammals which includes humans there are two biological sexes, female and male.
That’s not necessarily true. You’re right that it’s not a sex-based difference in itself, but I’m pretty sure there are observable sex- and sex vs. sex-based differences in aggression levels. This still could “contribute” to an understanding of that.
What if human tears have an identical effect on other humans?
It might still play a differing role during aggression.
Or it might not. The fact is, this particular study doesn’t seem to establish a sex based difference
Perhaps they expected to find one (totally reasonable), but due to current year sensitivities they didn’t want to deal with that.
More likely, I think they will do the research one piece at a time to milk it for publications. Why publish 1 paper when you can have 4?
Also, and this is cynical, if their aim was to establish sex based differences it would be difficult to get a grant. Now that they have established a sort of presupposition that there is a difference, maybe they can frame a funding proposal with the aim to demonstrate the same results with the girls playing video games and the boys being milked for tears!
I would tend to agree that the aggression levels in that case wouldn’t be as high, but what would be the statistical impact of the tears? Might or might not be comparable.