Oh, forgot to mention: there’s a book that caught my eye in the bookstore today on this subject. It’s called something like “Men Head East, Women Turn Right.”
Wow. I’m surprised at all the people whose experience tells them there aren’t many fundamental differences between men and women. In my (considerable) experience with men, both as friends and romantically, I’ve found quite the opposite to be true. Then again, I’m very typically female. No, I’m not a bad driver (that stereotype is just bullshit), but I’m quite girly. And I tend towards men that are very masculine. I love the differences between us, I thrive on it.
A couple more things I’ve noticed: Many men need downtime after work. 30 minutes to an hour to sit by themselves in front of the tv or with the paper. Whereas alot of women prefer to talk about their day, and be with people.
Another thing- if a man likes a woman, she usually knows it. We pick up on little signs and analyze things to death. If a woman likes a man, though, it seems like she pretty much has to write it out for him in very large letters for him to see it.
It’s interesting to me how different some of our experiences are.
Men try to “fix” things. Women want to “feel” things. If you tell a woman about a problem, she’ll be genuinely sympathetic and be able to commiserate. If you tell a guy about a problem, he’ll start suggesting what you can do (or what you should’ve done) to make everything better.
I can’t count the number of times I’ve heard “yes, I know I could be doing that. I just want to be angry right now.”
These are all pretty gross generalizations. I’m a woman and I need downtime after work (because I’m an introvert - I don’t think it’s gender based). I’d know what you’re saying if you said “raspberry” but that’s reddish or maybe pink-red to me. Mess to me is when I no longer navigate the room safely. There are men who jump to advice without listening, but PLENTY of women who do this too. It’s just human nature. I’d agree though hearing the phrase “I just want to be angry right now” from a man would strike me as unusual.
The one generalization I’ve always believed is that men are better spatially and with numbers.
Yup. Very true.
Women make generalizations mostly about men. Men make generalizations about everybody.
If men and women are the same, why are there transsexuals? Surely there must be some innate sense of masculinity and femininity if a person can realize the sex of their body does not match their mind. If there was only one “human mind”, it could be in a body of either sex and it wouldn’t matter.
Absolutely, there is. There’s differences in body language / how the body tends to want to move, and also in ways of phrasing sentences. I’ve heard and subsequently observed that men tend to talk almost exclusively about objects and actions whereas women tend to also share thoughts and feelings a lot.
I have a theory that each of the four parts of a Myers-Briggs personality type represents a masculine-feminine divide, but that a person can be on either side of each regardless of their gender. That they are mere statistical correlations, just like Aesiron’s comment about the presence or absence of a penis. 
Raspberry isn’t a color; it’s either a fruit or a noise.
Here’s My Theory About The Differences Between The Sexes. Men, on the average, are taller than women. But men and women both vary widely in height, and not every man is taller than every woman.
The older and more experienced I get, the more convinced I am that there are numerous built-in differences between males and females—differences in interests, abilities, preferences, personality—that follow this pattern: That males are, on the average, more (or less) _____ than females, but it’s not at all impossible to find specific individuals in which the reverse is true.
Also, different societies, subcultures, or upbringings may work to exagerrate or minimize these naturally occuring differences.
Thus, it is wrong to assume things about an individual because of their gender. But if an occupation, activity, etc. predominantly attracts one gender or the other, it’s not necessarily an indication that there’s discrimination going on.
The main difference I can see is that men are perfectly comfortable checking the state of the toilet seat upon every use, and furthermore regard this as the natural state of things, not being disturbed to find the seat up or down.
Women on the other hand, are accustomed to assuming that the seat is down, savagely refuse to check, and throw absolute shit-fits when the seat is not put back down.
As for me… I say it takes two to tango, and while men should put the seat down through courtesy, women ought to be bright enough to check if they don’t want to sit on the cold porcelain, and not have a conniption if they didn’t have the foresight to check.
Fair enough, too.
Personally, if I find the seat is up during the day I put it down and do my thing. The only time I’ve ever been known to ‘have a conniption’ is when I’ve staggered out practically in my sleep in the middle of the night, only to land butt-first on cold, germ-ridden porcelain. :eek:
(You show me one man who never, ever gets even the littlest bit of sprayback onto the porcelain edge and I’ll … well, I’ll be very surprised.)
Having to take a shower in the middle of the night because you sat in something you’re convinced is slightly sticky is NOT the kind of thing a person takes with good grace.
It’s more of an innate sense of being male or female, and the current research indicates that it may be a physical property of the brain. When that innate sense doesn’t match the sex of the physical body, you have a transsexual.
Transsexuals vary in their interest in masculine and feminine pursuits just as natal women and men do.
That said, I think there is an innate sense of masculinity and femininity, and that sense is very generally correlated with being female or male. To what degree that is nature or nurture I’ll leave to great debates.
There’s really nothing wrong with using generalizations to describe traits of large populations, so long as you don’t make the assumption that all members or any one member of that poplulation will or should exhibit the those traits.
Toilet seats: If a couple is arguing about the up/down thing, IMHO, both are being unreasonable. It takes very little effort on the part of either party to fix the problem.
My personal favorite:
If a woman goes to a party and sees another woman there wearing the same outfit that she is. The two said women will wind up being mortal enemies.
If a guy goes to a party and sees another guy there wearing the same shirt HE is. Well, these two will wind up being the best of friends.
(it’s funny because it’s true.)
I’ve never understood this. If it causes such a huge problem, both parties should put both seat AND cover down when they’re done. Problem solved – now everyone has to lift the lid. One example of where forcing men and women to be the same actually works.
Besides, who wants to be looking into the toilet whenever they’re in the bathroom?
There are some interesting books on the subject… and even though men and women can become quite similar in many ways… especially a couple… the differences do exist. Like the french say “Vive la difference!”
Technically speaking… women use both sides of the brain simultaneously… whilst men use them separately. Women have better language and social skills… better memory… whilst men are geared toward spatial and physical skills more easily. They say a woman will carry a baby in her arms so as to see her face… and a man would carry a baby looking forward to see where they are going.
I saw a documentary about a woman who felt she was a man and started a hormonal treatment to change sexes. They made all sorts of physical and mental test before the treatment… and after it. Before she got coordination and spatial skills typical of women… after a few months her test result was typical of males. She also ran a mile before and after… and her stamina and time was much better afterwards. The most incredible part though… was her telling how during the treatment she felt like crying once… but simply couldn’t manage it. Before the treatment she would have wept for sure at that moment.
Naturally we can just dismiss the differences as minor... which they sure are... but that there are differences that can't be denied.I noticed that women seem to be able to shift their way of dealing with people much more fluidly than men can.
By which I mean that when I was coxing for a men’s rowing team I was “one of the boys” while I wore my kit, but as soon as I changed into normal clothes after a practice they started opening doors and not swearing in front of me. The next day when I was in my kit it would be filthy jokes again. I found it bizarre, since I treated them exactly the same whatever they were wearing, I just shouted less when they weren’t in a boat.
I have felt several times that I was mentally being put into a box by men and treated accordingly, and that if something happened to change their perception of me I could sort of “see” the mental gears turning as they swapped me into another category.
I’ve never felt that way when dealing with women. Now, maybe that’s because I AM a women, or maybe it’s because women do the mental boxing, but are better at switching than men, I couldn’t say.
Do you have any citations? I know it’s odd to ask for them in the IMHO forum, but I’m not challenging you. Instead, I’m just looking for pointers to reputable sources where I can follow up. Purely for my own edification.
For instance, I read an article awhile back that said that, contrary to conventional wisdom, men are more tolerant of pain than women. I don’t have a cite to that article, and I know it’s a contested finding. (For instance, ABC News and NewScientist articles, versus a CNN article to the contrary.) However, it seems that there are also differences in reactions to pain (as opposed to simply being able to tolerate it), as described in these two newspaper articles.
The crux of the argument can be summed up by a quote from this article (written by an undergrad at Bryn Mawr, a few citations at the bottom):
My ex-GF was specializing in some neurology and similar stuff and she was the one that told me a lot of these things. Otherwise I’d search older threads here in the SMDB that have posted some good threads. I don’t have “cites” per se.