# Gender roles and violence **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [July 29, 2009, 7:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gender-roles-and-violence/504696 "2009-07-29T19:38:31Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Freudian\_Slit](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/5daacb/32.png) [@Freudian\_Slit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Freudian_Slit)\ **Post date:** [July 29, 2009, 7:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gender-roles-and-violence/504696/1 "2009-07-29T19:38:31Z")
In this [thread](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=526223) on how to fix men, a lot of people were talking about starting a new one: > [@Is there a way to fix men?](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-a-way-to-fix-men/504622/58): > > Yes, I agree that feminine gender roles have some issues as well. They’re connected anyway and if our concept of masculinity changed, so would our concept of femininity. Men as a group, though, are the ones who have historically been dominant and oppressive to women and to an extent still are, not vice versa, so I see that as a more pressing problem. > > Yeah, we could talk about this somewhere else. If someone makes another thread on the topic, I’ll post there. Sorry if the topic wasn’t really descriptive enough. I wanted to avoid the inflammatory nature of the last one. While obviously eradicating the male gender is just plain wrong, there were some good questions posed in the last thread. That is, why is it that so many more men commit acts of violence and rape than women. Is it opportunity–i.e., being stronger physically leading to men being more likely to be able to commit the acts of violence to begin with? This could then lead to men being socialized to enjoy being more aggressive because it leads to rewards and women feeling like they’re supposed to want to be more cooperative. Not necessarily because women are naturally more cooperative but because it’s more of a “might as well deal with the cards we were given” stance. And I think it’s important to make clear that it’s not as if a society of all women would be great. Human beings in general can be pretty awful to one another. Before I ramble on too much…more thoughts? ---
**Author:** ![MOIDALIZE](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/e274bd/32.png) [@MOIDALIZE](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MOIDALIZE)\ **Post date:** [July 29, 2009, 7:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gender-roles-and-violence/504696/2 "2009-07-29T19:47:33Z")
There are plenty of evolutionarily advantageous behavioral “strategies” that men engage in. Being aggressive, domineering assholes is one such strategy, but it’s not the only one, and not one that all men engage in. Such behaviors may have been useful in the past, they may be useful today, and they may be useful again in the future, so I don’t think we should be so quick to try and “re-engineer” men. Look at it another way: think of the women who only seem interested in having as many offspring as possible, regardless of whether they can properly and responsibly care for them. That behavior is frowned upon, but have serious efforts been made to try and eradicate it? ---
**Author:** ![tdn](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/94ad74/32.png) [@tdn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tdn)\ **Post date:** [July 29, 2009, 7:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gender-roles-and-violence/504696/3 "2009-07-29T19:57:27Z")
I think it’s useful to remember that there’s a huge difference between assertive and dominant and aggressive and domineering. The former is masculine but not violent. Masculine and violent are not synonyms. In much the same way, feminine does not necessarily mean demure, weak, or victimized. And I think we can all agree that violence and rape are bad. Having said that, are today’s men really being socialized to think that being aggressive and domineering are good things? I would think that in the last 20 or so years, it’s quite the opposite. The recent feminist movement has made many of us apologetic for being born who we are. ---
**Author:** ![athelas](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/5e9695/32.png) [@athelas](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/athelas)\ **Post date:** [July 29, 2009, 8:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gender-roles-and-violence/504696/4 "2009-07-29T20:46:13Z")
Are aggressive and dominant/domineering men (who are aggressive and domineering enough to become “a problem”) more or less successful with women than their counterparts who are meek and humble to the same extreme? As long as we are talking about gender differences, that is a powerful incentive right there. ---
**Author:** ![Jimmy\_Joe\_Meager](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/bb73d2/32.png) [@Jimmy\_Joe\_Meager](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jimmy_Joe_Meager)\ **Post date:** [July 29, 2009, 8:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gender-roles-and-violence/504696/5 "2009-07-29T20:59:21Z")
> [@athelas](#): > > Are aggressive and dominant/domineering men (who are aggressive and domineering enough to become “a problem”) more or less \*\*successful \*\*with women than their counterparts who are meek and humble to the same extreme? “Successful” how? As measured by what? Are these guys “successful”? ---
**Author:** ![athelas](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/5e9695/32.png) [@athelas](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/athelas)\ **Post date:** [July 29, 2009, 9:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gender-roles-and-violence/504696/6 "2009-07-29T21:18:13Z")
Heh, funny site. My larger point is that this “aggressive” behavior, when it _doesn’t_ lead to criminality, is highly incentivized by men and women alike. And especially for the latter, which operates on the hindbrain level of sexual attraction, it looks hardwired, not a matter where benevolent dictators can socially engineer it out. So as they say, don’t blame the player, blame the [setup of the] game. ---
**Author:** ![Freudian\_Slit](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/5daacb/32.png) [@Freudian\_Slit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Freudian_Slit)\ **Post date:** [July 29, 2009, 9:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gender-roles-and-violence/504696/7 "2009-07-29T21:32:00Z")
> [@athelas](#): > > Heh, funny site. My larger point is that this “aggressive” behavior, when it _doesn’t_ lead to criminality, is highly incentivized by men and women alike. And especially for the latter, which operates on the hindbrain level of sexual attraction, it looks hardwired, not a matter where benevolent dictators can socially engineer it out. > > So as they say, don’t blame the player, blame the [setup of the] game. But isn’t there a pretty big difference between being assertive and flat out raping or killing someone? I think we can get rid of the latter behavior without getting rid of assertiveness. ---
**Author:** ![athelas](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/5e9695/32.png) [@athelas](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/athelas)\ **Post date:** [July 29, 2009, 9:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gender-roles-and-violence/504696/8 "2009-07-29T21:54:48Z")
Well I would say harsher punishments, but that already seems played out. Note also that violent criminality (as opposed to white-collar crime or elaborate heists) is associated with low IQ, and men have higher [variance](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sex_and_intelligence#Variance_in_IQ)in IQ than women do. (Of course the variance thing cuts both ways, and by the same token men are also overrepresented at the top levels of ability, in areas such as the quantifiable Nobel Prizes, top management, and the hard sciences and mathematics.) This suggests, again, that a part of the problem of higher male criminality may be innate. ---
**Author:** ![athelas](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/5e9695/32.png) [@athelas](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/athelas)\ **Post date:** [July 29, 2009, 9:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gender-roles-and-violence/504696/9 "2009-07-29T21:56:55Z")
For the interested, a [table](http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_OqiKkTj5eBg/Sm-BwgrfyuI/AAAAAAAAAn8/nlyJxUQgJUA/s1600-h/sexdifferences2.jpg)from a study of sex differences in personality, with correlations and p-values. Listing the most prominent variables from highest to lowest (numbers are standard deviations): Female advantage: Harm avoidance .72 Social closeness .43 Prone to over-react .41 Self-control .34 Traditionalism .21 Male advantage: Aggression .87 Suspicious/persecuted .32 Achievment .22 So, women are more cautious, controlled social, sensitive, and in need of a predictable environment. Men are more willing to take advantage of others; they are more likely to feel mistreated; and they are more achievement-oriented. ---
**Author:** ![dropzone](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dropzone/32/7515_2.png) [@dropzone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dropzone)\ **Post date:** [July 30, 2009, 3:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gender-roles-and-violence/504696/10 "2009-07-30T03:38:09Z")
In eight hours this thread has inspired eight responses. This shows that a lofty ideal of debating issues on their merits does not necessarily produce a thread with high ratings. And some of you wonder why Fox News consistently aims at the lowest common denominator. 😉 ---
**Author:** ![The\_Weird\_One](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/7bcc69/32.png) [@The\_Weird\_One](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Weird_One)\ **Post date:** [July 30, 2009, 3:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gender-roles-and-violence/504696/11 "2009-07-30T15:09:30Z")
I think it’s interesting to see how feminism and the nature-vs-nurture debate have interacted over the years. Pre-feminist society had strict gender roles laid out and claimed that these roles were not socially imposed, but simply the “natural order” of things. In overthrowing society’s gender roles, feminism tried to erase all gender differences, and while it sometimes vilified men, it also vilified traditional female roles and told women to be more like men. (See: the 80’s career woman and the abomination that was shoulder pads.) Now we’ve loosened the gender roles and are still seeing differences between men and women, so the pendulum is swinging back from nurture to nature once again, and I’m seeing a lot of emphasis on scientifically explaining those differences as being natural. And while I agree that there probably are some different tendencies in men and women based on their different hormonal levels, I’m also concerned that an undue focus on identifying and studying those differences will cause us to lose sight of the far greater similarities between men and women. ---
**Author:** ![Whack-a-Mole](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/whack-a-mole/32/141_2.png) [@Whack-a-Mole](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Whack-a-Mole)\ **Post date:** [July 30, 2009, 4:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gender-roles-and-violence/504696/12 "2009-07-30T16:02:30Z")
> [@dropzone](#): > > In eight hours this thread has inspired eight responses. This shows that a lofty ideal of debating issues on their merits does not necessarily produce a thread with high ratings. And some of you wonder why Fox News consistently aims at the lowest common denominator. 😉 I posted in the thread that prompted this thread. A lot of people did. I thought cross-posting was a no-no so figured what I said in the other thread would just have to stay there (despite the thread being locked). ---
**Author:** ![Jimmy\_Joe\_Meager](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/bb73d2/32.png) [@Jimmy\_Joe\_Meager](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jimmy_Joe_Meager)\ **Post date:** [July 30, 2009, 5:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gender-roles-and-violence/504696/13 "2009-07-30T17:02:10Z")
> [@The\_Weird\_One](#): > > feminism tried to erase all gender differences Agreed. And suggesting otherwise (see Lawrence Summers) will still get one vilified as being “sexist” by the left (i.e. liberals). And since this board is heavily, heavily slanted to the left, most people won’t even stick their necks out to admit that they think men and women are, indeed, different. In very real, measurable, and meaningful ways… such as intelligence. I am thoroughly, albeit pleasantly, surprised that \*\*athelas \*\*hasn’t been pilloried. To acknowledge that intelligence is a factor in explaining why higher rates of male criminality may be innate, then logically intelligence is also a factor in explaining higher rates of male aptitude in science and math. However, the statement “men are generally better at science and math” will send liberals, feminists in particular, into a tizzy. They will insist that men and women are equal (dammit!), conveniently obfuscating the difference between “equal” and “identical”. Again, see Lawrence Summers. These same liberal ideals, and hindrances, mire this board. That, **dropzone** , is why this thread is getting little attention. Most people here simply aren’t able to have this discussion. They’re too liberally biased. They know that acknowledging certain differences between men and women would mean they’d have to accept all the outcomes that those differences lead to (such as both increased criminality and increased aptitude at math in males), but only certain of those outcomes are politically, socially, and intellectually palatable to them (such as increased criminality in males). I’ll go so far as to say that the lack of participation in this thread is because of people like you – who can’t even approach the topic without letting their bias get in the way. I can’t help but point out that your entire contribution to this thread, from your lofty post on the SDSAB no less, is to snark at the lack of participation by equating it to Fox viewers. You haven’t contributed anything, yet clearly shown your bias. Yep… that’s the problem. ---
**Author:** ![The\_Tao\_s\_Revenge](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/73ab20/32.png) [@The\_Tao\_s\_Revenge](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Tao_s_Revenge)\ **Post date:** [July 30, 2009, 6:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gender-roles-and-violence/504696/14 "2009-07-30T18:20:56Z")
Okay I’ve been thinking about I wanna say to this. Here is a personal antidote, that if you bear with me, will explain what I think the problem is. When I was a kid I had no dad and was raised mostly by my mom and grandma during the early, impressionable years. I wasn’t raised chicky, but I was raised with the ideas that toy guns, ninja turtles, and the like were too violent. I tended to hate conflict in school, and still do. I never really learned the point of competition. Didn’t play sports. I can be competitive cause I hate being wrong, and I hate losing at video games, though. Despite my habit of getting in flaming arguments on this forum, I hate them, but I feel they’re necessary for personal development. See socialization happens at many levels. It happened when I was a kid, and as a result I tended toward the XX side of **athelas** ’s list of statistics, but males have different role expectations then that. One of the reasons it ended with my ex was I tended toward the submissive/supportive side too much, partly because that’s how I was raised and partly because it’s all I knew how. I have my grandma’s temper, but I’d learned to step outside of it. You can’t lose your temper if you don’t let yourself get angry. When we’d have a fight I’d do all the right things because I loved her and I wanted to be pure goodness for her, and as a result my ex didn’t feel like she knew me. She tried to make me angry, she wanted to see how I’d react. She tried to make me jealous but I didn’t want to be over bearing so I suppressed it. The more she couldn’t break my emotional control the less she felt she knew me. The most she could do was make me lock up in stunned silence. She explained to me what she was trying to do after we broke up. My ex was very smart in those things. Since then I’ve figured out the wisdom in it. I need to be assertive, I need to say what I think. I need to be imperfect, selfish, and an ass sometimes, because those things are what make us human. They’re necessary, and natural. To understand their role is to understand yourself. However they need to be balanced with self betterment, putting others first, and respect. It’s not having an understanding of the place and balance of either set that leads to problems. Putting others first too much puts all the pressure on others, and is destructive to yourself. Putting yourself first too much isn’t right either, for obvious reasons. So since then I’ve attempted to destroy the emotional controls I learned, to be assertive, competitive, be imperfect, blend in to society. But now I’m starting to understand the importance of balance. What I’m coming to understand is emotional control isn’t preventing the forest fire completely, but the difference between a raging forest fire, and a brush clearing controlled burn. It’s not preventing undesirable emotions from sparking, but letting them happen and then controlling how they come out. The point of all that is gender roles are traps. Female gender roles push women into preventing the forest fire, while masculine role expectations point more toward the uncontrolled burn. The thing of it is active emotions are protective. Anger motivates you to change a situation. Getting angry and leaving gets a woman (or a man) out of an abusive situation, but, unchecked by a sense of right and wrong, anger fuels the fists of the abuser’s punches as well. The problem society faces, both male and female, I think (considering as much as I’ve had to relearn what I thought I knew), is people don’t learn the proper way to handle their emotions. ---
**Author:** ![Whack-a-Mole](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/whack-a-mole/32/141_2.png) [@Whack-a-Mole](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Whack-a-Mole)\ **Post date:** [July 30, 2009, 6:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gender-roles-and-violence/504696/15 "2009-07-30T18:59:39Z")
> [@Jimmy\_Joe\_Meager](#): > > Agreed. And suggesting otherwise (see Lawrence Summers) will still get one vilified as being “sexist” by the left (i.e. liberals). And since this board is heavily, heavily slanted to the left, most people won’t even stick their necks out to admit that they think men and women are, indeed, different. In very real, measurable, and meaningful ways… such as intelligence. Really? Have a cite for that? My info says otherwise. While you’re at it please define “intelligence” so we are all on the same page. > [@](#): > > **Female, male brain differences studied** > > \ > > The researchers found no significant overall intelligence differences between males and females in any age groups. > > SOURCE: [http://www.mc.vanderbilt.edu/reporter/index.html?ID=4717](http://www.mc.vanderbilt.edu/reporter/index.html?ID=4717) > [@Jimmy\_Joe\_Meager](#): > > To acknowledge that intelligence is a factor in explaining why higher rates of male criminality may be innate, then logically intelligence is also a factor in explaining higher rates of male aptitude in science and math. However, the statement “men are generally better at science and math” will send liberals, feminists in particular, into a tizzy. They will insist that men and women are equal (dammit!), conveniently obfuscating the difference between “equal” and “identical”. Again, see Lawrence Summers. Again…cite? Summers as gotten pretty beat up on this point. To wit: > [@](#): > > Critics say Summers ignored overwhelming evidence that such difficulties are caused by social factors that include sex discrimination, not by genetics. They note that boys’ and girls’ average test scores are the same, and that gender differences in scores have converged over the past few decades – a convergence that no one suggests is due to a sudden transmutation of women’s DNA. > > Girls outperform boys > > One of the sharpest retorts to Summers comes from a man, Burton Richter, a Nobel Prize winner and former director of the Stanford Linear Accelerator Center, who notes that in 2003-04, girls in England outperformed boys in the highest levels of math and physics tests. > > “Presidents of universities,” Richter snapped, “should not use their mouths before their brains.” > > Read more: [http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/chronicle/archive/2005/01/31/MNG02B326R1.DTL#ixzz0MlnU8XNH](http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/chronicle/archive/2005/01/31/MNG02B326R1.DTL#ixzz0MlnU8XNH) Or how about a study explicitly looking into Summer’s claims? > [@](#): > > Last January, Harvard University President Lawrence Summers, PhD, suggested that men outperform women in high-level science and mathematics due to genetics, not life experience. However, an analysis by Harvard University psychology professor Elizabeth Spelke, PhD, in the American Psychologist (Vol. 60, No. 1) counters that suggestion. Her review finds that boys and girls share the same biologically-based cognitive capacities from which mathematical and scientific reasoning develop. > > \ > > As Spelke reviewed 111 studies and review papers, she found that the majority of studies suggested that both men’s and women’s mathematical and scientific abilities have a genetic basis in cognitive systems that emerge in early childhood. When researchers compare male and female infants’ and children’s performances, they find that they perform equally well. For instance, 6-month-old boys and girls equally perform simple additions and subtractions and compare one small set to another. > > SOURCE: [http://www.apa.org/monitor/jan06/gender.html](http://www.apa.org/monitor/jan06/gender.html) Here’s a link to Spelke’s study which covered 40 years of research: [http://www.wjh.harvard.edu/~lds/pdfs/spelke2005.pdf](http://www.wjh.harvard.edu/~lds/pdfs/spelke2005.pdf) (PDF) > [@Jimmy\_Joe\_Meager](#): > > These same liberal ideals, and hindrances, mire this board. That, **dropzone** , is why this thread is getting little attention. Most people here simply aren’t able to have this discussion. They’re too liberally biased. They know that acknowledging certain differences between men and women would mean they’d have to accept all the outcomes that those differences lead to (such as both increased criminality and increased aptitude at math in males), but only certain of those outcomes are politically, socially, and intellectually palatable to them (such as increased criminality in males). If anything the liberal “bias” is to understand this is a very difficult topic. Studying this and controlling for a myriad of other factors (societal, economic, etc.) makes this a study fraught with peril in understanding exactly what the data is telling us. There are no easy, pat answers that covers the population as neatly as you might like. If anything it is a conservative knee jerk reaction to assume black & white distinctions when the reality is there is a lot more gray area to be had. ---
**Author:** ![athelas](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/5e9695/32.png) [@athelas](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/athelas)\ **Post date:** [July 30, 2009, 7:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gender-roles-and-violence/504696/16 "2009-07-30T19:07:36Z")
Your interpretation of the studies is entirely incorrect, though your erroneous conclusion was propagated by the media. In fact, Summers was [vindicated](http://www.marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2008/07/summers-vindica.html)by the evidence, which goes to support a well-accepted fact that I cited above: men have _higher variance_ in IQ than women do, which goes to explain why there are more male geniuses (and morons.) > [@](#): > > In fact, consistent with many earlier studies (JSTOR), what this study found was that the ratio of male to female variance in ability was positive and significant, in other words we can expect that there will be more math geniuses and more dullards, among males than among females. I quote from the study (VR is variance ratio): > > ``` > Greater male variance is indicated by VR > 1.0. All VRs, by state and grade, are >1.0 [range 1.11 to 1.21]. > > ``` > > Notice that the greater male variance is observable in the earliest data, grade 2. (In addition, higher male VRS have been noted for over a century). Now the study authors clearly wanted to downplay this finding so they wrote things like “our analyses show greater male variability, although the discrepancy in variances is not large.” Which is true in some sense but the point is that small differences in variance can make for big differences in outcome at the top…Larry Summers in his infamous talk, was explicit about this point: > > ``` > ...if one is talking about physicists at a top twenty-five research university, one is not talking about people who are two standard deviations above the mean...But it's talking about people who are three and a half, four standard deviations above the mean in the one in 5,000, one in 10,000 class. Even small differences in the standard deviation will translate into very large differences in the available pool substantially out. > > ``` > > If you do the same type of calculation as the authors but now look at the expected gender ratio at 4 standard deviations from the mean you find a ratio of more than 3:1, i.e. just over 75 men for every 25 women should be expected at say a top-25 math or physics department on the basis of math ability alone ---
**Author:** ![The\_Tao\_s\_Revenge](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/73ab20/32.png) [@The\_Tao\_s\_Revenge](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Tao_s_Revenge)\ **Post date:** [July 30, 2009, 7:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gender-roles-and-violence/504696/17 "2009-07-30T19:15:56Z")
Also to go a little further. When you maintain an iron grip over your emotions you tend to think incorrect things. Like when my ex was trying to make me mad I used to rationalize it away as something I did. That I needed to try harder. Most stories of abuse echo similar thoughts. I really think women need to be taught better self respect, and to be assertive. I really think that’s the only difference between men and women is gender role expectations. Take the work of the Sociologist Margret Mead who studied three tree tribes in New Guinea. The Arapesh where both men and woman acted what we consider feminine, the Mundugumor where women both acted as we call masculine, and the Tcamnbuli where women were crass and men what we call metrosexual. Also the the other thread was full of crap about the difference between male and female potential for intellectual contributions, or intelligence. How many Madam Curries, and Hypatia of Alexandrias were there when you consider the pressures against intellectual pursuits women historically faced? edit: question about the IQ data posted. Does it account for any social pressure against developing the skills IQ tests test for? ---
**Author:** ![athelas](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/5e9695/32.png) [@athelas](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/athelas)\ **Post date:** [July 30, 2009, 7:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gender-roles-and-violence/504696/18 "2009-07-30T19:30:27Z")
IQ tests are designed to measure innate intelligence, not ability in a particular subject matter. You’ll notice that the test Tabarrok was discussing was a _math_ test, and the average girl scored the same as the average boy on those tests (and that was the simplistic measure trumpeted in the media), but the two groups have different variances. This argues against your conveniently vague charge that society is discriminating against the development of mathematical ability in girls. ---
**Author:** ![Whack-a-Mole](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/whack-a-mole/32/141_2.png) [@Whack-a-Mole](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Whack-a-Mole)\ **Post date:** [July 30, 2009, 8:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gender-roles-and-violence/504696/19 "2009-07-30T20:15:36Z")
> [@athelas](#): > > Your interpretation of the studies is entirely incorrect, though your erroneous conclusion was propagated by the media. In fact, Summers was [vindicated](http://www.marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2008/07/summers-vindica.html)by the evidence, which goes to support a well-accepted fact that I cited above: men have _higher variance_ in IQ than women do, which goes to explain why there are more male geniuses (and morons.) And this tells us what? Nothing really as regards whether males and females have innate differences in various cognitive abilities. I will cite some bits just below but I encourage you to read the whole article. It notes the study you cited and acknowledges the gender gaps in testing. What is interesting though is that these gender gaps can and have been closed in some places. So, either the women in those countries have evolved differently or there are other factors (societal, economic, etc.) at work. > [@](#): > > Having recognized gender gaps that expanded and contracted from country to country, Sapienza and colleagues examined social features that might explain the changes. Other researchers had shown that social conditioning and gender-biased environments can impact test performance, so Sapienza and colleagues used four tools to measure how well women were integrated into each society compared with men. The first measure was the Gender Gap Index (GGI) developed by the World Economic Forum (WEF; see Hausmann et. al. 2006). > > \ > > “We presented this, and many people from the U.S. didn’t like it. The majority of Americans are convinced that they’re at the top of the equality index. But they’re not. On some measures, the U.S. is below Estonia,” said Sapienza. The top four countries in the GGI ranking were Sweden (0.81), Norway (0.80), Finland (0.80), and Iceland (0.78). The U.S. is ranked 23rd (0.70). A GGI equal to 1 reflects full gender equality, a level none of the countries reached. > > \ > > Regardless of which measure of gender equality they used, Sapienza and her colleagues found that improved social conditions for women were related to improved math performance by girls. For example, the math gender gap almost disappeared in Sweden (GGI = 0.81), while girls scored nearly 23 points below boys in math in Turkey (GGI = 0.59). Not only did average girls’ scores improve as equality improved, but the number of girls reaching the highest levels of performance also increased. In Iceland, for example, there were 117 girls for every 100 boys among the top 1 percent of math students. > > \ > > Having linked social structures to the math gender gap from country to country, Sapienza wonders whether this result rules out biological influences entirely. The answer is no. The biological hypothesis suggests that an average boy would score higher in mathematics than in reading, while for girls the reverse is true. This pattern does not change in more gender equal societies hinting that some aspects of academic performance may be innately different between boys and girls. > > Sapienza and colleagues found that boys, regardless of the country and social environment in which they live, typically do better in math than in reading. Similarly, girls are usually better in reading than in math, regardless of the degree of gender equality in their society. As a result, in more gender equal societies, girls will gain an absolute advantage relative to boys. > > \ > > So the between gender differences in a single discipline—reading or math—certainly appear to be influenced by social features, but the within gender differences between reading and math, and between arithmetic and geometry, appear to be much more stable across environments, suggesting possible biological roots. > > SOURCE: [http://insight.kellogg.northwestern.edu/index.php/Kellogg/article/women\_and\_math\_the\_gender\_gap\_bridged](http://insight.kellogg.northwestern.edu/index.php/Kellogg/article/women_and_math_the_gender_gap_bridged) Seems a gray area to me. Some biological differences seem to be apparent clearly gender gaps are bridged. So again, unless you posit those countries where this happens have genetically evolved women there seems to be a greater nurture rather than nature effect at work (although both are present apparently). ---
**Author:** ![The\_Tao\_s\_Revenge](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/73ab20/32.png) [@The\_Tao\_s\_Revenge](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Tao_s_Revenge)\ **Post date:** [July 30, 2009, 8:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gender-roles-and-violence/504696/20 "2009-07-30T20:25:07Z")
> [@athelas](#): > > IQ tests are designed to measure innate intelligence, not ability in a particular subject matter. Innate intelligence in what? What do they test that can’t be improved or degraded by skill development? One of the biggest arguments against IQ tests is they only test certain abilities. Where as different people tend to have different intellectual strengths. Is someone with strong kinesthetic intelligence more or less intelligent then a visual thinker? Is someone with strong social intelligence more or less intelligent then a social awkward computer geek? There is no universal intelligence. > [@](#): > > This argues against your conveniently vague charge that society is discriminating against the development of mathematical ability in girls. You appear to be asking for cite, or maybe clarification, in a backhanded way. Why not just ask directly? The other (jerk) thread mentioned intellectual contributions of the past were mostly men in it’s (hateful and spittle flecked) critique of what would be better for the present. Would you like a cite that society not being oppressive to the intellectual development of women is a recent thing? [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gender-roles-and-violence/504696.md?page=2)