Are women more self-involved than men?

In My Humble Opinion
1

In a recent thread, monstro [post=7980015]notes[/post] one difference between men and women:

I think there is a lot of truth in that, but I think it ties into a larger theme of women generally relating everything back to oneself.

Another example is body image. As I’ve pointed out before, men are regularly deluged with just as many – if not more – examples of the ideal male physique as women are. While there are more “dumpy” actors than actresses, that gap is more than made up for by countless athletes in prime physical shape. Guys don’t look at Terrell Owens or Brad Pitt and feel bad about their own body; they just think “damn that guy is ripped.” Women, OTOH, seem to react to the sight of an attractive woman with “she has better (whatever) than me.”

Related to that point is some experiences with various girlfriends. I’ve always liked knowing my girlfriends’ celebrity crushes because I like to think of my SOs as sexual beings; it’s hot that they get heated up. Going the other way, while I’ve never been with a raging psycho who would get bent out of shape over one of my celebrity crushes, it always seems to get related back to them. A wry or playful “Oh, so you wish I was taller?” or “So you wish I had bigger boobs?” is par for the course. God forbid I should let slip a recent favorite, Keira Knightley. “What, so now I’m FAT?!”

Also consider the difference in how the sexes stroke egos. A man might say “You the man,” or tell him he’s good at whatever it is he’s good at. A woman might say “I’d kill for your thighs” or whatever, which is oddly bringing the focus back on herself.

I ask that you look past the poor construction of this post and try to address the concept itself. Am I way off base, or is there something to my premise? If there is a kernel of truth in there, what do you think might be the cause? Differences in how men and women’s brains are wired? Socialization? Tied into the different reproductive roles? Or something else?

Men are statistically bigger risk-takers than women. This could be related; something along the lines of men attaching a lower importance to themselves. This seems plausible to me, as it appears to be pretty widely conceded, if only tacitly. (Men-only draft, “women and children first”, etc…)

Then again, maybe monstro nailed it in one and it’s all about women being more giving. As in, women want (need?) to be all things for the people they care about. This also seems plausible, considering how completely a mother meets the needs of her baby. It would explain the body image issues, and especially the celebrity crushes angle. Any body type that is desirable that she isn’t is a desire somebody has that she can’t fulfill. It would be ironic if an overly-giving nature resulted in a more self-involved person.

I have trouble getting my head around the possibility that it’s all socialization, but it can’t be completely ruled out. I think body issues are one of the stronger manifestations of this self-involvement; are there any cultures where women don’t have (so many) body issues?

Finally, to be clear, anywhere “men” and “women” are mentioned in this thread, it will be understood by everyone participating that it means “generally” as opposed to “all,” so can we please do without the tiresome laundry lists of exceptions? Thanks.

2

There is certainly something to your premise; you are about half right. Women do indeed overwhelmingly relate everything back to themselves. The missing half of your thesis is this: so do men. It seems to be part of the human condition. If you find this difficult to believe, just as a thought experiment try going one day without using the first person singular and see how far you get.

Men are concerned about body image in a different way than are women because (again in general) women do not choose their partners based primarily on their partner’s physical appearance. It certainly is a factor but it is in general not the primary factor. In general, it is a primary factor for men.

Young men have a higher tolerance for risk than do young women, but this has nothing to do with any trait of self-effacement but instead has to do with the awareness of risk. Young men do not think the bad thing will happen to them, simply put. Thinking that you personally will escape a general risk does not support the idea of attaching a lesser importance to oneself; quite the opposite.

There are, generally speaking, gender differences and sex differences, and some of them seem to be hormonally or neurologically based and others are socially imposed. In general, however, the similarities far outweigh them. They are more spice than main ingredient it seems to me.

3

Thanks for the thoughtful response, Marienee. I stipulate that men are self-involved. All humans are. My question is one of degree; are women self-involved to a larger, smaller, or the exact same extent? If it’s the same, is monstro’s point then invalidated?

To engage some of your specific points, you say (and I agree) that men are less concerned about body image because appearance isn’t as important to women when choosing a partner. That addresses the “why”, as opposed to the “if.” In a nutshell, if women are more self-involved, part of the cause could be that men select partners based on the effects of self-involvement. (Spending time applying makeup, for example.)

As for the risk, I don’t think young men take risks because they believe bad things won’t happen to them. I think it’s more that they think bad things just won’t happen, period. I’d chalk this more up to stupidity and willful ignorance than an invulnerability complex. Otherwise you’d think they wouldn’t want to risk their buddies’ lives, ya’know? (The vast majority of all the stupid and dangerous things I did in my youth involved multiple other guys, all of whom I very much did not want to see get hurt.)

I agree that the gender and sex similarities far outweight the differences, but that’s what makes the similarities IMO uninteresting.

It’s really not that hard. As a quick (and somewhat sad & pathetic) example, after reading complaints on the SDMB last year I stopped refering to all sports teams I root for in the first person. I no longer refer to them as “we”, though I may be the only sports fan on the planet not to do so. It’s amazing how entrenched that way of thinking is, but it was easy to stop doing, and I feel no less connection to the team.

Other than work stuff that needs to be related back to me, I will give it a go. I think I could maintain it indefinitely, but I’ll try for a week, both IRL and here on the boards, and report back. (Note: from here on out, assume all statements I make include “IMO”, as I’ve omitted references to myself per the challenge.)

If it were a contest between an arbitrary group of men and women, the men would probably have a similar advantage to the one the women would have in a no-masturbation contest.

A couple more ideas to add to the OP: One is the daily verbal decompression women seem hardwired for. Women process emotions verbally, or at very least more verbally than do men. What other reason is there for this disparity except differences in how the brains are wired? (Namely, superior language faculties.)

Another one is the idea of being pampered. This seems to be more valued by women than men. Most guys would enjoy a day at a spa, but in general most guys don’t actively seek out such treatment. It’s nice in a “clean bedsheets are nice” kinda way: not nice enough to proactively pursue very hard. Women seem to luxuriate in being pampered by others, or even alone. Imagine a person enjoying a long, hot bath: what gender springs to mind?

The sex drive is another. Women’s sex drive seems very tied into how sexy (sexually appealing) they feel. Men’s libido is largely unrelated to their perceived attractiveness. An uninhibited girl once said she wasn’t going to masturbate because she was grubby and feeling unsexy. This may well have never happened to any guy, ever.

4

Women are definitely different from men.

For a start they tend to spend a fortune on hair cuts, and so they have told me, it makes a real difference in the way they are treated by other women.

They also, in my experience, get wound up by trivial things, small slights at work being an example.

They sort of look sideways, while males tend to look straight ahead.
If they were not so interesting to talk to, and if they did not give my ageing loins a tingle, then I reckon we could do without them.

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Someone once mentioned to me that in a primal cavenmen way, sexually men are supposed to “go out and spread their seed to as many breeding partners as possible.” Whereas for women the opposite is true: their primitive cavewoman brain tells them to weed out the inferior gene pools and they have to be picky.

Perhaps your observations are related to this ancient hardwiring. For men, the world is open opportunity. For women it is a matter of careful, personal selection, and “self-invovled” choices.

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And for every generalization there is an exception. The person I tiptoe around the most at work because he is likely to get wound up about trival things, put himself at the center of everything, and treat everything as a personal attack against him is a guy. He is also the guy I have to watch for petty cuts against me (and not so petty ones). He isn’t even gay, so it isn’t one of those drama queen things.

7

Well, you tried, Ellis.

8

Well, gay doesn’t necessarily mean drama queen.

I’m sure there are some manly gay dudes out there that just want to watch Sports Center and THEN swing from your balls like a monkey.

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The classical Woman with a capital W is both more self-involved and other-involved than men.
She is the original “people person”. More of her concentration is on humans than cars, sports, and politics.

But that is changing. Not as fast as we expected, but still changing.