# Are women more normative than man? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [April 15, 2014, 7:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-women-more-normative-than-man/686198 "2014-04-15T19:19:59Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![jtur88](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/e9c0ed/32.png) [@jtur88](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jtur88)\ **Post date:** [April 16, 2014, 3:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-women-more-normative-than-man/686198/21 "2014-04-16T15:22:09Z")
> [@Exapno\_Mapcase](#): > > On a side note, while normative does mean pertaining to a standard, the norm, I’ve never seen the word used to be “closest to the norm/least varied.” It just doesn’t feel right to me. It’s not modifiable. > > At the same time I’m not sure what the right word would be. You can’t substitute normal for normative in the thread title because that also has the wrong connotations. > > Possibly there isn’t a proper word for this. I suggest normly. “Inlying”, as opposed to “outlying”? > [@Exapno\_Mapcase](#): > > No matter. I absolutely believe that hate speech toward women exists. Don’t you? The fact that hate speech exists does not, by itself, equate to “All references are hate speech”. ---
**Author:** ![Exapno\_Mapcase](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/exapno_mapcase/32/1051_2.png) [@Exapno\_Mapcase](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Exapno_Mapcase)\ **Post date:** [April 16, 2014, 3:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-women-more-normative-than-man/686198/22 "2014-04-16T15:37:09Z")
> [@jtur88](#): > > The fact that hate speech exists does not, by itself, equate to “All references are hate speech”. Obviously not, which is why I never said that. But I was responding to Hector\_St\_Clare’s comment, and that was indeed broad and overstated. ---
**Author:** ![ThisUsernameIsForbidden](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/b4bc9f/32.png) [@ThisUsernameIsForbidden](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ThisUsernameIsForbidden)\ **Post date:** [April 16, 2014, 5:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-women-more-normative-than-man/686198/23 "2014-04-16T17:48:04Z")
The differences described by the bell curves plays into natural selection. Males on the higher end would be selected more frequently and they can impregnate multiple females. ---
**Author:** ![Hari\_Seldon](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hari_seldon/32/5173_2.png) [@Hari\_Seldon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hari_Seldon)\ **Post date:** [April 16, 2014, 7:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-women-more-normative-than-man/686198/24 "2014-04-16T19:24:22Z")
> [@Hector\_St\_Clare](#): > > When people say that sort of thing (“ready to puke”, etc.) it’s best to just ignore them, since they clearly aren’t interested in facts. Yes, except she carried the day. He didn’t even try to make a case, only said it ought to be studied. I don’t know why there are so few women in math, but she felt it was not something to study, but had to be the result of discrimination. ---
**Author:** ![DSeid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dseid/32/20194_2.png) [@DSeid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DSeid)\ **Post date:** [April 17, 2014, 1:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-women-more-normative-than-man/686198/25 "2014-04-17T01:02:08Z")
> [@Hector\_St\_Clare](#): > > The expected fitness from a male child is equal to the expected fitness from a female child, except under conditions of very high or low stress. That’s why (at an ultimate level, not a proximate one), the sex ratio in humans is 1:1. … I don’t think you understand what you are responding to. Over evolutionary history a mother’s death while her child is young would have great impact on the odds of the child surviving to reproductive age and success itself. The fitness cost of early adult death to a woman was thus high. The adult male’s death OTOH would have had less impact on the survival of the child they have had to reproductive age: the fitness cost of moderately early father death was less. Alternatively one can speculate that a positive outlier trait would have limited impact on a mother’s fitness success, possibly allowing her to attract a “better” mate or marginally to get one more child to reproductive age. Whereas a positive outlier trait in a male could theoretically result in many additional progeny: a big potential payoff. In some early systems the positive outlier’s success was huge and being other than the outlier was associate with little reproductive success at all. Average or horribly below average both had very little reproductive success; only top dog mated and they mated often with many. ---
**Author:** ![panache45](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/panache45/32/64_2.png) [@panache45](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/panache45)\ **Post date:** [April 17, 2014, 3:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-women-more-normative-than-man/686198/26 "2014-04-17T03:23:51Z")
I’d call it steeper vs. broader bell curves. ---
**Author:** ![LC\_Strawhouse](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/e19adc/32.png) [@LC\_Strawhouse](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LC_Strawhouse)\ **Post date:** [April 17, 2014, 3:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-women-more-normative-than-man/686198/27 "2014-04-17T03:36:22Z")
Did I miss something? Everyone’s saying “yes, it’s true” without offering proof. And even if it may be true in some cases, surely it can’t be true for every single human trait. ---
**Author:** ![Colibri](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/colibri/32/1841_2.png) [@Colibri](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Colibri)\ **Post date:** [April 17, 2014, 4:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-women-more-normative-than-man/686198/28 "2014-04-17T04:06:30Z")
> [@LC\_Strawhouse](#): > > Did I miss something? Everyone’s saying “yes, it’s true” without offering proof. And even if it may be true in some cases, surely it can’t be true for every single human trait. The [Variability Hypothesis](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Variability_hypothesis) for mental traits originated in the early 20th century but was challenged by later work. I’d like to ask **Shagnasty** for some cites for his assertions on the question. ---
**Author:** ![Shagnasty](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9dc877/32.png) [@Shagnasty](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shagnasty)\ **Post date:** [April 17, 2014, 4:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-women-more-normative-than-man/686198/29 "2014-04-17T04:58:35Z")
> [@Colibri](#): > > I’d like to ask **Shagnasty** for some cites for his assertions on the question. What are you asking for specifically? You are a scientist. My academic training is in the sexual differentiation and behavioral neuroscience of psychology. It is difficult to break decades worth of scientific results into a few short paragraphs so I decided to keep it short and simple because it is true. Nearly all sex-independent measurable traits on the statistical bell curve show a few males at the top. That should be blatantly obvious even to casual observers. We can look at individual traits selectively and prove that it is true one by one or we can explore the theories about why that is. Which question are you most interested in? Be specific because, while I am happy to help educate, I am not interested in teaching both a statistics and behavioral neuroscience 101 class in this thread. This is one of those topics that is so well documented that it is actually difficult to cite unless the question is more refined. It is kind of like asking a chemist why they believe there are such things as atoms. ---
**Author:** ![wevets](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/e9a140/32.png) [@wevets](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wevets)\ **Post date:** [April 17, 2014, 5:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-women-more-normative-than-man/686198/30 "2014-04-17T05:39:42Z")
> [@Shagnasty](#): > > I am not interested in teaching both a statistics and behavioral neuroscience 101 class in this thread. This is one of those topics that is so well documented that it is actually difficult to cite unless the question is more refined. It is kind of like asking a chemist why they believe there are such things as atoms. Generally, chemists will then be able to point to the work of J. J. Thomson and Rutherford, Rydberg and Bohr. Who would you point to as the equivalent of Rutherford for this topic in behavioral neuroscience, leaving aside the notion that you might need to teach **Colibri** , who IIRC holds a PhD in zoology or biology and has been a practicing scientist for years, statistics :dubious:. ---
**Author:** ![Qwertol](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/q/e274bd/32.png) [@Qwertol](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Qwertol)\ **Post date:** [April 17, 2014, 5:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-women-more-normative-than-man/686198/31 "2014-04-17T05:57:52Z")
While I’m generally happy with answers it’s true that this thread lacks confirming cites… ---
**Author:** ![Shagnasty](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9dc877/32.png) [@Shagnasty](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shagnasty)\ **Post date:** [April 17, 2014, 6:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-women-more-normative-than-man/686198/32 "2014-04-17T06:13:54Z")
> [@wevets](#): > > Generally, chemists will then be able to point to the work of J. J. Thomson and Rutherford, Rydberg and Bohr. Who would you point to as the equivalent of Rutherford for this topic in behavioral neuroscience, leaving aside the notion that you might need to teach **Colibri** , who IIRC holds a PhD in zoology or biology and has been a practicing scientist for years, statistics :dubious:. I know **Colibri** knows both science and statistics. I already said that. I suspect he is asking a leading question for the benefit of other readers. What I was getting at was what level of proof and/or cause does everyone want to know? It is one thing to ask about underlying causative processes and quite another to question that such differences exist in the first place at the very extremes. It is fairly easy to show that a few males score the highest on almost any specific mental or physical measure. It is much more work to go through the possible reasons why that is and unnecessarily technical if that wasn’t the question in the first place. ---
**Author:** ![DSeid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dseid/32/20194_2.png) [@DSeid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DSeid)\ **Post date:** [April 17, 2014, 12:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-women-more-normative-than-man/686198/33 "2014-04-17T12:16:12Z")
As I stated I can believe it is true, but the simple fact is that things that seem obvious, or that are “we all know that” often turn out to be false when critically examined. “Highest” on any particular trait, for example, does not support the claim regarding variation about the mean. Use height … the mean for males is 5 inches higher than the mean for females. Same variation about the mean leads to the tallest males being taller than the tallest females. To the best of my knowledge however the variation about the mean for each is the same. BMI? Several studies I can find demonstrate that females have greater variation about the mean than males, see specifically this [CDC bar graph](http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/databriefs/db82.pdf). For [blood pressure](http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/nhsr/nhsr035.pdf)? Males were more normal. > [@](#): > > Among men, 71.6% were classified as normotensive, 17.5% as treated hypertensive, and 10.9% as untreated hypertensive. Among women the percentages were 69.7%, 21.5%, and 8.9%, respectively. Intellectual capacity? A bit more controversial. I could find [this.](http://skeptics.stackexchange.com/questions/7093/do-men-show-greater-variance-in-the-distribution-of-their-iq-than-women) > [@](#): > > Hyde looked at data from maths tests in Minnesota and compared the numbers of boys and girls who scored in the top 5% of their year. The ratio was 1.45, meaning that for every two girls in this elite group, there were around three boys. In the top 1%, the ratio was 2.06, meaning two boys for every girl. That seems to vindicate the Variability Hypothesis, but those figures only applied to white American children. In other ethnic groups or, indeed, in other countries, the picture was very different. > > For Asian-Americans the ratio was actually 0.91, meaning more girls than boys in the top 1%. International studies have found similar trends. One analysis of tests from the Program for International Student Assessment (PISA) showed that 15-year-old girls matched or outnumbered their male peers in the top tiers within Iceland, Thailand and the UK. Two studies found that 15-year-old boys and girls were equally varied in their mathematical skills in most of the countries taking part in PISA and the Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study (TIMSS). In some, like the Netherlands, girls actually turned out to have the wider range of ability. > > So much for the idea that a greater variation in ability underlies the larger number of men in the top ranks of mathematics – if that had any biological basis, it should apply to all populations regardless of ethnicity or nationality. Clearly, that’s not the case … Those are just the first traits that come to mind and that I could find any data on. What seems to be true, seems obvious without critical analysis, might not be. Or might be only for traits that are subject to sexual selection. That said it is reasonable to speculate for reasons that it could be true, and it makes sense that it would be. Accepting the statement at as true however is a stretch. ---
**Author:** ![DSeid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dseid/32/20194_2.png) [@DSeid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DSeid)\ **Post date:** [April 17, 2014, 1:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-women-more-normative-than-man/686198/34 "2014-04-17T13:07:19Z")
I checked the [growth charts](http://www.cdc.gov/growthcharts/clinical_charts.htm#Set2) by percentiles and was wrong on height - the 5 to 95% range in males at 20 years old is a 13 cm spread and in females the same age is 17 cm. In height _male_ humans are _more normative_/less deviant/however you want to phrase it. You can also open up the BMI growth percentile curves there and see another example of greater variation about the mean in females graphically with girl percentiles being wider at almost every age. Boys slightly wider variation on head circumference. That’s the first of the things I’ve checked randomly that males did have convincingly greater variation about the mean. Honestly I can’t find much support for the claim. Perhaps limiting the discussion to a _hypothetical assumption_ that it is true then what could be the reasons and/or mechanisms would be indicated? ---
**Author:** ![Colibri](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/colibri/32/1841_2.png) [@Colibri](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Colibri)\ **Post date:** [April 17, 2014, 3:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-women-more-normative-than-man/686198/35 "2014-04-17T15:21:04Z")
> [@Shagnasty](#): > > What I was getting at was what level of proof and/or cause does everyone want to know? Perhaps you could cite some review articles or even textbooks that summarize what is known on the subject. Failing that, perhaps some seminal articles on the subject. I at least have access to the technical literature. ---
**Author:** ![Shagnasty](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9dc877/32.png) [@Shagnasty](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shagnasty)\ **Post date:** [April 17, 2014, 4:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-women-more-normative-than-man/686198/36 "2014-04-17T16:09:07Z")
> [@Colibri](#): > > Perhaps you could cite some review articles or even textbooks that summarize what is known on the subject. Failing that, perhaps some seminal articles on the subject. I at least have access to the technical literature. Here are a couple of overview articles. > **[Sex differences in psychology](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sex_differences_in_human_psychology)** > > Sex differences in psychology are differences in the mental functions and behaviors of the sexes and are due to a complex interplay of biological, developmental, and cultural factors. Differences have been found in a variety of fields such as mental health, cognitive abilities, personality, emotion, sexuality, friendship, and tendency towards aggression. Such variation may be innate, learned, or both. Modern research attempts to distinguish between these causes and to analyze any ethical co A num... > **[The Sexual Paradox](https://books.google.com/books?id=MuLxjm7cmNsC&pg=PA13&lpg=PA13&dq=male%2Band%2Bfemale%2Biq%2Bbell%2Bcurve%2Bvariability%2Bpinker&source=bl&ots=hJ4Ua_bIwV&sig=17kzPTvF2j14ax7yhbFAR7Vk8ww&hl=en&sa=X&ei=x_tPU9StJtTIsASmh4CYDg&ved=0CHwQ6AEwCA#v=onepage&q=male%20and%20female%20iq%20bell%20curve%20variability%20pinker&f=false)** > > Susan Pinker, psychologist and award-winning columnist, has written a groundbreaking and controversial book that reveals why learning and behavioral gaps between boys and girls in the classroom are reversed in the workplace. Pinker examines how... ---
**Author:** ![DSeid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dseid/32/20194_2.png) [@DSeid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DSeid)\ **Post date:** [April 17, 2014, 5:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-women-more-normative-than-man/686198/37 "2014-04-17T17:42:50Z")
I don’t see much in those links that support your wide ranging claims. One cite in a wiki artilce that looked at male female sibships as the sole support for the claim of greater IQ variability, and math stating that it \*varies according to culture \*which gender has greater variability albeit males do in more of them. Really neither is a review of the subject of broad male female phenotypic variability. The claim that a wider SD for males “occurs for almost every physical and mental trait that can be measured” is unsupported and the fact that the few I could find good objective large population measurements on find if anything the opposite to be true more commonly falsifies such a sweeping statement. ---
**Author:** ![DSeid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dseid/32/20194_2.png) [@DSeid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DSeid)\ **Post date:** [April 18, 2014, 12:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-women-more-normative-than-man/686198/38 "2014-04-18T12:04:03Z")
So here is a question - Given that the examples I could find of traits that could be measured showed a slight tendency to more of them having greater variation about a mean in females than in males (height, BMI, blood pressure, and there are more, for example autoimmune disorders, another measurable trait, are much more common in females), why would _that_ be? The version “heard” by the op and claimed as true “for almost every physical and mental trait that can be measured” by **Shagnasty** is easy to make up just-so stories for. But why does it seem that the opposite is true? And why is the former version put out there so often without any real substantial basis? ---
**Author:** ![DSeid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dseid/32/20194_2.png) [@DSeid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DSeid)\ **Post date:** [April 18, 2014, 11:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-women-more-normative-than-man/686198/39 "2014-04-18T23:14:30Z")
Sorry to be both answering my own question and multiposting but googling about I really only see one context in which the claim of lower female SD is made: IQ discussion of the Bell Curve type with wider SD about the IQ mean (implicitly assuming that such reflects true genetic intellectual potential) as the explanation for why there appear to be more males of great intellectual accomplishment, and sometimes in a sense restricted to claims about math ability. A [couple](http://www.sjsu.edu/faculty/watkins/genderdiff.htm)of [examples](http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/the-how-and-why-sex-differences/201101/how-can-there-still-be-sex-difference-even-when-there-is): > [@](#): > > …it is a statistical fact that the variance of the distribution of abilities among males is greater than the variance of the distribution for females. In a sense this difference can be interpreted as more natural genetic experimentation with the males of the species than the females. > > The higher proportion of geniuses among males is counterbalanced with a higher proportion of idiots. Nature recognizes that the females of the species are the foundation of its survival whereas there is a great surplus of males in any species and it does not matter that a significant proportion is wasted in experiments that fail. The successful experiments are predominantly male but so are the unsuccessful experiments. Nature does waste females in experiments. Nature is amazingly wise not to waste females in that way. … > [@](#): > > Surprisingly, on many traits males are simply more variable than are females. Here is another example. Below is a graph of IQ scores of boys and girls in Scotland. Note that there are more boys than girls at both the high and low ends of the distribution > > This finding of greater male variability in IQ scores has been replicated with many different populations and in more modern times. Note the first states as fact the claim without any basis provided and then discusses IQ and even more entertainingly in the other example the other than IQ example is a picture of one group of males and females claiming greater height variability in males … when large scale data shows conclusively that females have greater height variability! Maybe there are a few more male lefties (it is debated) or males who are gay … [not sure](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographics_of_sexual_orientation) > [@](#): > > The largest and most thorough survey in Australia to date was conducted by telephone interview with 19,307 respondents between the ages of 16 and 59 in 2001/2002. The study found that 97.4% of men identified as heterosexual, 1.6% as homosexual and 0.9% as bisexual. For women 97.7% identified as heterosexual, 0.8% as lesbian and 1.4% as bisexual. Nevertheless, 8.6% of men and 15.1% of women reported either feelings of attraction to the same gender or some sexual experience with the same gender.[9] Overall, 8.6% of women and 5.9% of men reported some homosexual experience in their lives; these figures fell to 5.7% and 5.0% respectively when non-genital sexual experience was excluded … Not so slam dunk to me. Autism does seem to have a male predominance while, again, autoimmune diseases a female one. The statement of greater SD in females seems to be a false one slipped because and believed because it has a good just-so story to go with it to justify Bell Curve IQ arguments for the lack of females at highest levels. (It’s not discrimination, it’s not sociology, it’s not that on average they aint as smart … just variation about the mean) Is that a Big Lie fallacy or does it go by a different name? **Shagnasty** I’d be even interested in a list of _several_ human traits that can be reliably consistently measured that have solid evidence of significantly greater male SD. Seriously most I can find goes the other way if at all. ---
**Author:** ![Anomie](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/4491bb/32.png) [@Anomie](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Anomie)\ **Post date:** [April 19, 2014, 8:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-women-more-normative-than-man/686198/40 "2014-04-19T08:17:20Z")
Whenever this topic comes up I remember this presentation by Baumeister: [Is There Anything Good About Men?](http://www.matracas.org/escritos/goodaboutmen.html.en) I recommend it, it’s an entertaining read. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-women-more-normative-than-man/686198.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-women-more-normative-than-man/686198.md?page=3)