# Are there any proven, innate, psychological differences between the sexes? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [January 20, 2005, 9:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-there-any-proven-innate-psychological-differences-between-the-sexes/285787 "2005-01-20T21:19:43Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 17\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![kniz](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/c37758/32.png) [@kniz](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kniz)\ **Post date:** [January 24, 2005, 7:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-there-any-proven-innate-psychological-differences-between-the-sexes/285787/41 "2005-01-24T19:37:54Z")
> [@overlyverbose](#): > > That was sort of my point - to bring up the likelihood of contracting HIV/AIDS seems like a bad example to bring up if we’re talking about psychological differences. I apologize for giving the impression that this is directly tied into the psychological differences in the sexes. Dr. Rhoads pointed out the fact about HIV, saying even his best female students were unaware of it. He said that it isn’t generally revealed because of the fear that males will be less likely to use protection. I wish to point out that what I’m about to say is not necessarily counter to the information in **Whack-a-Mole** ’s post. Dr Rhoads believes that much of the difference between female and male has to do with the amount of testosterone the embryo is exposed to in the womb. Numerous times he referred to the fact that the embryo can be exposed to various amounts of testosterone, whether it is female or male. This implies that even if there are psychological differences it is not possible to pigeon-hole someone on a basis of sex alone. One of the most obvious differences is that males are generally more agressive. For every one female that kills another female there are 28 men who kill another man. One answer is for men to get married since that will lower his level of testosterone. Another is to get them to release their aggression by playing sports. Because of this Dr. Rhoads says that Chapter IX is misguided. Intramural sports are still open to anyone and 3 to 4 times as many male students sign up for intramural sports as female students. Of course, you could paraphrase Marie Antoinette and say “let them play intramural sports.” 😉 ---
**Author:** ![Tigers2B1](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/9fc29f/32.png) [@Tigers2B1](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tigers2B1)\ **Post date:** [January 24, 2005, 8:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-there-any-proven-innate-psychological-differences-between-the-sexes/285787/42 "2005-01-24T20:36:07Z")
Well I apologize for posting a link to Dr. Rhoad’s book when the discussion on just that was well on it’s way. Anyway, I do think there’s more. There’s something intuitively appealing about Evolutionary Psychology. Granted, whether there is much true science in psychology or specifically, evolutionary psychology (maybe except for twin studies) — this is certainly a question for others. But I thought I’d provide this link anyway. Interesting - To the main page — [http://www.psych.ucsb.edu/research/cep/](http://www.psych.ucsb.edu/research/cep/) What Evolutionary Psychology is, is described here. > [@](#): > > The goal of research in evolutionary psychology is to discover and understand the design of the human mind. Evolutionary psychology is an approach to psychology, in which knowledge and principles from evolutionary biology are put to use in research on the structure of the human mind. It is not an area of study, like vision, reasoning, or social behavior. It is a way of thinking about psychology that can be applied to any topic within it. > > In this view, the mind is a set of information-processing machines that were designed by natural selection to solve adaptive problems faced by our hunter-gatherer ancestors. This way of thinking about the brain, mind, and behavior is changing how scientists approach old topics, and opening up new ones. This chapter is a primer on the concepts and arguments that animate it. That, is found in context here - [http://www.psych.ucsb.edu/research/cep/primer.html](http://www.psych.ucsb.edu/research/cep/primer.html) ---
**Author:** ![Puffs](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/c77e96/32.png) [@Puffs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Puffs)\ **Post date:** [January 25, 2005, 3:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-there-any-proven-innate-psychological-differences-between-the-sexes/285787/43 "2005-01-25T03:02:32Z")
Seems ring finger length may have somethign to do with it. [http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/4202199.stm](http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/4202199.stm) ---
**Author:** ![Kaitlyn](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/73ab20/32.png) [@Kaitlyn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kaitlyn)\ **Post date:** [January 26, 2005, 3:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-there-any-proven-innate-psychological-differences-between-the-sexes/285787/44 "2005-01-26T03:26:52Z")
Anecdotal evidence: Socialization: For what it’s worth, my parents, teachers, and the social groups I was raised with, in school and out of school, all tried to socialize me into the male role. It didn’t take. I knew from the time I understood the difference between male and female that I was female, despite everyone trying to convince me otherwise. Hormones: It wasn’t until I began taking female hormones that I really felt comfortable in my body. Having androgens pumping through my blood vessels didn’t make me any more male than socializing me male did. So in my case, neither being socialized male nor having male hormones managed to convince me that I was male. There was something else, something that didn’t come from the way I was raised or the sex hormones in my body, that created in me the sense that I was female. ---
**Author:** ![Apos](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/838e76/32.png) [@Apos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Apos)\ **Post date:** [January 26, 2005, 3:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-there-any-proven-innate-psychological-differences-between-the-sexes/285787/45 "2005-01-26T03:31:54Z")
Sure, but that wasn’t what Summers was implying. He wanted to know whether you were good at MATH. 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![Apos](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/838e76/32.png) [@Apos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Apos)\ **Post date:** [January 26, 2005, 3:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-there-any-proven-innate-psychological-differences-between-the-sexes/285787/46 "2005-01-26T03:37:05Z")
Well, the sex horomone thing isn’t clear cut in this case, since it may well have been particular androgen levels in your body that contributed to your identity. Though you’re right: it’s probably a lot more complicated than JUST horomones. For instance, “women” with androgen insensitivity syndrome are actally men that don’t develop into men. The lucky fuckers tend to be slim and attractive AND they don’t have a period to worry about (since they don’t have a uterus). While the condition is rare, I also don’t know of any that feel they are really men with the wrong body: indeed most of the cases I’ve read have them being rather shocked to learn that they are, in fact part of the XY club. ---
**Author:** ![Kaitlyn](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/73ab20/32.png) [@Kaitlyn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kaitlyn)\ **Post date:** [January 26, 2005, 4:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-there-any-proven-innate-psychological-differences-between-the-sexes/285787/47 "2005-01-26T04:14:05Z")
> [@Apos](#): > > Well, the sex horomone thing isn’t clear cut in this case, since it may well have been particular androgen levels in your body that contributed to your identity. Though you’re right: it’s probably a lot more complicated than JUST horomones. There are two problems with this. First, my gender identity was formed long before puberty. I was a physically normal five year old boy, and was physically normal up until the time most boys begin puberty. Second, I had unusually low levels of androgens, which resulted in a late, protracted, and incomplete puberty, but I had a likewise low level of estrogens. Estrogens in a male are produced by chemical conversion of androgens, and while I had low androgen levels, I had virtually no estrogens. There were no female hormones in my body to create the feeling of being female, yet it was still there. Indeed the way I reacted to female hormones when I began taking them seems to indicate to me that my body / mind / brain or something else had been craving them all along. It was as if my system, despite being physically male, was designed to operate better with female hormones. My sense of being female wasn’t created by socialization or hormones (though it certainly reacted strongly and positively to female hormones), so it must have been something else. I don’t to what degree my situation generalizes to others, and it may not at all. I may be the exception to the general rule. But it is evidence that it isn’t entirely socialization or hormones. With me, it was something else. > [@](#): > > For instance, “women” with androgen insensitivity syndrome are actally men that don’t develop into men. The lucky fuckers tend to be slim and attractive AND they don’t have a period to worry about (since they don’t have a uterus). While the condition is rare, I also don’t know of any that feel they are really men with the wrong body: indeed most of the cases I’ve read have them being rather shocked to learn that they are, in fact part of the XY club. Gotta agree with you on the part about these women being lucky. This is a disorder I’d have loved to have had. ---
**Author:** ![Kaitlyn](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/73ab20/32.png) [@Kaitlyn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kaitlyn)\ **Post date:** [January 26, 2005, 4:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-there-any-proven-innate-psychological-differences-between-the-sexes/285787/48 "2005-01-26T04:22:37Z")
As I read the above more closely, I see that it’s hormones present in the womb that are being referred to as being responsible for male and female brain organization. What I just posted referred to hormones present in my body after birth. The way my body and mind took to female hormones when I first started taking them may acctually be anecdotal, circumstantial evidence that my brain had been programmed before birth as female, which would at least partly support this theory. So let me amend what I posted to this: In my case, I was physchologically female despite having male socializatin and male hormones in my body growing up, so for me, neither of those was a deciding factor or even had much influence. ---
**Author:** ![Apos](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/838e76/32.png) [@Apos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Apos)\ **Post date:** [January 26, 2005, 4:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-there-any-proven-innate-psychological-differences-between-the-sexes/285787/49 "2005-01-26T04:35:01Z")
> [@Kaitlyn](#): > > There are two problems with this. First, my gender identity was formed long before puberty. I was a physically normal five year old boy, and was physically normal up until the time most boys begin puberty. > > Second, I had unusually low levels of androgens, which resulted in a late, protracted, and incomplete puberty, but I had a likewise low level of estrogens. Estrogens in a male are produced by chemical conversion of androgens, and while I had low androgen levels, I had virtually no estrogens. There were no female hormones in my body to create the feeling of being female, yet it was still there. But I don’t think anyone claims that horomone have such a _direct_ correlation to whether someone feels like a man or a woman. After all, and especially, women are closer to the “base” template for humanity: maleness is the deviance. So if both your horomone levels were low, that might well default to female in some respects. Though again, that sounds way too simple. > [@](#): > > Indeed the way I reacted to female hormones when I began taking them seems to indicate to me that my body / mind / brain or something else had been craving them all along. It was as if my system, despite being physically male, was designed to operate better with female hormones. Or, as you said, it was lacking estrogen and needed it. Estrogen is actually, as far as I know, much more important to regulating the human body in both males and females than androgen is in either. Too little androgen isn’t much a big deal as far as I know, but too little estrogen is bad news for male or female. > [@](#): > > My sense of being female wasn’t created by socialization or hormones (though it certainly reacted strongly and positively to female hormones), so it must have been something else. Again, because they are not so simple as “male” and “female” horomones, I don’t think your example really does rule them out, at least not yet. Of course, there may well be “something else” (or even more fundamental of which horomones are only a symptom) as well. > [@](#): > > Gotta agree with you on the part about these women being lucky. This is a disorder I’d have loved to have had. Damn skippy! Though, the condition does render one irrecoverably sterile (for obvious reasons: no ovaries either), which is devastating to many young women to discover, and of course is not without it’s troubles, so I shouldn’t make too glib an endorsement of it. I’m a male who definately does not have the same experience as you (i.e. never felt any strong particular attachment to feminity, or litterally that I was in the wrong body), but I do have a more intellectual and less visceral ho-hum that I was born male. I’m happy that we are increasingly living in a world where people who feel their bodies aren’t living up to their inner-self can actually do something about it. I’m just not motivated or interested enough to do much more than speculate. 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![Kaitlyn](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/73ab20/32.png) [@Kaitlyn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kaitlyn)\ **Post date:** [January 26, 2005, 5:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-there-any-proven-innate-psychological-differences-between-the-sexes/285787/50 "2005-01-26T05:10:32Z")
Ah, but my sexual identity was formed long before any secondary sexual differentiation began. My unusual hormone levels had no effect on my physical body until puberty, by which time my sexual identity was fully developed. Again, I don’t claim my one case to be decisive in any way, and I realize that I’m an abberation in a lot of ways. It may indeed be at least partly hormones, and at least partly socialization; I don’t have any evidence to dispute that. All I’m saying is that there must be something else in additon to those factors, and for me, it was that something else that was the decisive factor. That something else may be hormones present in the womb which organize the brain into a female or male structure. That seems to make sense to me, and it jibes with the research on MTF transsexual brains, which tend to be physically similar to the brains of normal women. By the way, I was better at math, but enjoyed language-based activities more. ---
**Author:** ![Apos](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/838e76/32.png) [@Apos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Apos)\ **Post date:** [January 26, 2005, 5:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-there-any-proven-innate-psychological-differences-between-the-sexes/285787/51 "2005-01-26T05:26:56Z")
> [@](#): > > Ah, but my sexual identity was formed long before any secondary sexual differentiation began. My unusual hormone levels had no effect on my physical body until puberty, by which time my sexual identity was fully developed. They certainly don’t begin to initiate OBVIOUS changes until puberty, but that doesn’t mean that they aren’t still there, at work, nonetheless. ---
**Author:** ![Kaitlyn](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/73ab20/32.png) [@Kaitlyn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kaitlyn)\ **Post date:** [January 26, 2005, 6:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-there-any-proven-innate-psychological-differences-between-the-sexes/285787/52 "2005-01-26T06:22:45Z")
> [@Apos](#): > > Or, as you said, it was lacking estrogen and needed it. Estrogen is actually, as far as I know, much more important to regulating the human body in both males and females than androgen is in either. Too little androgen isn’t much a big deal as far as I know, but too little estrogen is bad news for male or female. This is true, but irrelevant. The standard treatment for a male whose body is producing too little testosterone, and as a result, has too little estrogen (less testosterone to covernt means less estrogen) is male hormones. Get the male hormones up to a normal level, and the body naturally adjusts estrogen levels to match. If I had gone to my endocrinologist without a letter from my therapist and a consulting psychiatrist saying I was gender dysphoric, I would have been given male hormones, not female. That most physical males with low testosterone levels nonetheless identify as male and seek treatment to become more masculine would seem to indicate that low testosterone levels aren’t a cause of female gender identity. I don’t claim that it had no effect, but that the effect was minor in my case. I return to my assertion that, in me, it was primarily something else, something that was essentially present at birth. To be sure, socializatiion did play an important role in the personality I eventually developed. The more I was forced into the typical masculine role, the more I wanted to be stereotypically feminine. Had I been permitted to be a feminine boy, I doubt that I’d be so over-the-top girly now, though I have no doubt that I’d still have sought sex reassignment. Male socialization actually had the reverse of the intended effect on me. > [@](#): > > They certainly don’t begin to initiate OBVIOUS changes until puberty, but that doesn’t mean that they aren’t still there, at work, nonetheless. In my case, my pituitary gland was normal, producing the right amount of the enzyme that stimulates testosterone production in the testicles, but my testicles weren’t processing it properly. I grew at a normal rate, and was within norms in height and weight for Asian males throughout my prepubescent years. It wasn’t until my late 20’s, when I was being treated for gender dysphoria, that my endocrinologist found that my testicles weren’t producing enough testosterone. This seems to indicate that I was a normal physical male until the normal age of onset of puberty, though since I wasn’t tested for such abnormalities at the time, there’s no way to know for sure. I can’t say with certainty that hormones had no effect, but there doesn’t seem to be any evidence that my hormonal levels were abnormal until my early to mid-teens. ---
**Author:** ![Apos](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/838e76/32.png) [@Apos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Apos)\ **Post date:** [January 26, 2005, 6:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-there-any-proven-innate-psychological-differences-between-the-sexes/285787/53 "2005-01-26T18:30:45Z")
Again, it really seems like you case was too complicated by a host of other factors to say exactly what was cause and what was effect. But regardless: I wonder how someone with your particular history you’d fit into this sort of research here: “Researchers say it is all down to differences in the reliance of the sexes on either grey matter or white matter in their brains to solve problems. They found that in intelligence tests men use 6.5 times as much grey matter as women, but women use nine times as much white matter.” [http://www.news.com.au/story/0,10117,12033956-13762,00.html](http://www.news.com.au/story/0,10117,12033956-13762,00.html) Certainly seems to be an oversight on the part of the researchers that they don’t consider transgendered, or for that matter, homosexual individuals when studying differences between men and women. Especially given that if their testing population _includes_ homosexuals and the transgendered, that could skew the results one way or another anyway. ---
**Author:** ![SteveG1](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/bb73d2/32.png) [@SteveG1](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SteveG1)\ **Post date:** [January 28, 2005, 3:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-there-any-proven-innate-psychological-differences-between-the-sexes/285787/54 "2005-01-28T03:59:24Z")
> [@BrainGlutton](#): > > For a man it’s like, “Shirt! [puts shirt in bag] Shirt dead now!” 😃 Alright now, have you been spying on me? 😃 ---
**Author:** ![JMS\_CCT](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/bbe5ce/32.png) [@JMS\_CCT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JMS_CCT)\ **Post date:** [January 29, 2005, 7:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-there-any-proven-innate-psychological-differences-between-the-sexes/285787/55 "2005-01-29T19:25:42Z")
> [@jsgoddess](#): > > > [@](#): > > > > I think all of us would agree that practice improves ability, and if men and women get different amounts of practice in skills, they should show different levels of ability. > > > > I’ve read, though I don’t know trustworthy the statistics are, that women read much more than men. But is that because women want to read more, women are allowed culturally to read more, women have more time to read more, or women are expected to read more? > > > > More reading would likely increase fluency with language. But is that innate? Do women who don’t read score as high as women who do? > > > > There’s lots of baggage with being a member of a sex, and I don’t think a study in this culture can control for it. Concerning ability I think there are innate differences between men and women, but there is no doubt practice can narrow these differences. I am an example of this. I was such a slow reader in grade school I had to be held back one year (I may have even been dislexic). I took one of those on-line IQ tests a year ago (I’m a 58 year old male), and scored 152 on the verbal part of it. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [January 31, 2005, 1:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-there-any-proven-innate-psychological-differences-between-the-sexes/285787/56 "2005-01-31T01:36:01Z")
One thing that, surprisingly, nobody has really addressed yet: The difference in the male and female sexual agendas. The male sex drive might or not be any more powerful than the female, but it is definitely more **urgent.** It’s all nownownownownow. In practically any country or culture, a woman (and she needn’t be an attractive woman) can make a living by selling her body to men; it is much, much harder for a man to make a living selling his body to women. A (straight) man seems to be driven to plant his seed in as many women as he can as often as he can. There is a theory in “sociobiology” that this is hard-wired, an evolutionary success strategy – a man has “sperm to burn” and could, given the opportunity, sire more than a hundred children in a year. A woman, OTOH, can bear maybe a dozen in a lifetime; her evolutionary success strategy is to get one likely male, keep him around to provide for the family, and keep him from straying so far that another woman might steal him. Supposedly that’s also why feelings of sexual jealousy are different for men and women: If a man his cuckolded it means his kids might not really be his; if a woman is cuckolded it means only that she risks joining the First Wives Club. It also explains why a man who has sex with a lot of women is looked on as a heroic stud, while a woman who has sex with a lot of men is viewed as a whorish slut with no self-respect. What do you all think? Is this persuasive? Or are the sexual-behavior differences between the sexes rooted in acculturation? If the latter, why do these differences seem to be found in so many different cultures? ---
**Author:** ![Arwin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/51bf81/32.png) [@Arwin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Arwin)\ **Post date:** [January 31, 2005, 11:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-there-any-proven-innate-psychological-differences-between-the-sexes/285787/57 "2005-01-31T23:03:36Z")
> [@BrainGlutton](#): > > There is a theory in “sociobiology” that this is hard-wired, an evolutionary success strategy – a man has “sperm to burn” and could, given the opportunity, sire more than a hundred children in a year. A woman, OTOH, can bear maybe a dozen in a lifetime; her evolutionary success strategy is to get one likely male, keep him around to provide for the family, and keep him from straying so far that another woman might steal him. But how many men these days actually do sire more than 2 children? Exactly. There has been done a lot of research in this, showing that even something as primitive as sex drive is governed in immensely complex ways by both cultural and natural survival strategies, that far exceed the complexity of the above. Do you think that we talk here on this message board is hardwired into us? That we talk English? So much of our lives is governed by culture, so little of our physical instincts remain to govern our behaviour. That doesn’t mean nothing is innate or influenced by our instincts, small differences can be greatly magnified. But it is largely up to us now whether we do so. It is no longer technically required by our environment, and you see enormous changes over history for varieties of reasons. If anything, the human brain is resourceful and flexible in how it can apply itself. That quality stands above all other and the differences between men and women are in many respects insignificantly small when compared to the similarities. The link to a simple document on gender issues I posted in the pitted thread on transsexuality covers a whole lot of it: [http://www.campbell-kibler.com/Stereo.pdf](http://www.campbell-kibler.com/Stereo.pdf) [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-there-any-proven-innate-psychological-differences-between-the-sexes/285787.md?page=2)