# Women: the more moral sex? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [February 16, 2015, 4:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/women-the-more-moral-sex/712792 "2015-02-16T04:27:34Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Slithy\_Tove](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/slithy_tove/32/18248_2.png) [@Slithy\_Tove](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Slithy_Tove)\ **Post date:** [February 16, 2015, 5:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/women-the-more-moral-sex/712792/21 "2015-02-16T17:23:29Z")
Catherine de Medici, Margaret Thatcher, Carly Fiorina, etc. It seems that roadblocks to women’s progress guarantees that, in fields where the nastiest people rise to the top, the really, really nasty women will prevail. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [February 16, 2015, 5:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/women-the-more-moral-sex/712792/22 "2015-02-16T17:47:01Z")
Men are more aggressive than women, more dangerous – not necessarily less honest. ---
**Author:** ![Rune](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/e68b1a/32.png) [@Rune](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rune)\ **Post date:** [February 16, 2015, 7:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/women-the-more-moral-sex/712792/23 "2015-02-16T19:05:11Z")
The impulse that makes men more likely to be involved in a dangerous street race or a pub brawl is also the impulse that makes men more likely to dive into a freezing river or rush into a burning building to save a random stranger. Can’t whether say you’ve have a better society overall if you remove those impulses – certainly you’d have a much less interesting and dynamic culture. Men overall in general just seem to be both much worse and much better than women. ---
**Author:** ![Rune](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/e68b1a/32.png) [@Rune](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rune)\ **Post date:** [February 16, 2015, 7:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/women-the-more-moral-sex/712792/24 "2015-02-16T19:11:35Z")
> [@even\_sven](#): > > Let’s think this through. > > 50 years ago, there were basically no female engineers or CEOs. Women who worked worked in a narrow range of fields- teachers, nurses, secretaries, etc. And this was supposed to be human nature. > > But along came feminism, telling us that it wasn’t necessarily human nature, but result of systematic discrimination. And so they worked to dismantle some of this discrimination. > > And _boom_, like magic, there were suddenly a number of female engineers and CEOs. And that number has been steadily growing, basically at the pace that discrimination is reversing. > > That leaves the “women don’t have it in their nature to lead or do technical jobs” people with two explainations. One is that human nature underwent a massive transformation in the last fifty years, which seems kind of unlikely. The other is that we were wrong about what we thought was human nature 50 years ago (oops), but we’ve got it right now, and 2015 American society is the actual real reflection of human nature. So what you’re saying is that men are overwhelmingly more likely to be bankrupt, homeless, have mental problems, be in jail and abuse substances because of rampant sexism against men, and that 50 years of feminism have don’t absolutely nothing to address this? Or is in more in men’s biological nature to be all those things? ---
**Author:** ![even\_sven](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/dfb087/32.png) [@even\_sven](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/even_sven)\ **Post date:** [February 16, 2015, 7:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/women-the-more-moral-sex/712792/25 "2015-02-16T19:35:31Z")
> [@Rune](#): > > So what you’re saying is that men are overwhelmingly more likely to be bankrupt, homeless, have mental problems, be in jail and abuse substances because of rampant sexism against men, and that 50 years of feminism have don’t absolutely nothing to address this? Or is in more in men’s biological nature to be all those things? Sexism is, indeed, a two-way street. It’s a nasty system that hurts different people in different ways, but ultimately hurts pretty much everyone one way or another. ---
**Author:** ![Taber](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/ac91a4/32.png) [@Taber](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Taber)\ **Post date:** [February 16, 2015, 7:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/women-the-more-moral-sex/712792/26 "2015-02-16T19:39:56Z")
If you look at traditional gender roles, you’d predict that the people put in the violent, protector role would end up with more problems with violence than people put in the nurturing role. It is unclear how much traditional gender roles is observing real differences between men and women, and how much the roles create differences by rewarding people who conform to them. More women are in the boardroom and prison than there were when gender roles held more sway over society, like the 50’s, so it’s clearly not all biological differences. ---
**Author:** ![Thudlow\_Boink](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/thudlow_boink/32/320_2.png) [@Thudlow\_Boink](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Thudlow_Boink)\ **Post date:** [February 16, 2015, 7:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/women-the-more-moral-sex/712792/27 "2015-02-16T19:48:15Z")
> [@protoboard](#): > > The stats seem to suggest so, don’t they? Unless women are simply more adept at getting away with things, men just commit more crimes, it’s a fact. > > Men murder more, they rape more, they’re more likely to be pedophiles, they bully more, they abuse animals more, they’re the ones that start wars usually. It just seems like the majority of people who do evil things happen to have a penis. It sounds like you’re suggesting that morality mainly consists of not committing violent crimes. Is that really all there is to being a moral person? ---
**Author:** ![Velocity](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/velocity/32/18006_2.png) [@Velocity](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Velocity)\ **Post date:** [February 16, 2015, 8:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/women-the-more-moral-sex/712792/28 "2015-02-16T20:19:36Z")
If we look at another aspect of this issue, I’ve noticed that bullying by women, of women, often tends to be far more malicious and long-lasting than bullying of men, by men. As one of my college professors put it, paraphrased: “Two boys can fight each other and the next day they’ll have forgotten about it as if it never happened. But if two girls fight each other, then, 20 years later, they’ll still be hating each other.” So if “morality” involves analysis of people’s behavior or motives or altruism, then I think that there are women who can be just as malicious - in fact, possibly even more venomous or spiteful - as men. ---
**Author:** ![Trinopus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/2bfe46/32.png) [@Trinopus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Trinopus)\ **Post date:** [February 16, 2015, 9:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/women-the-more-moral-sex/712792/29 "2015-02-16T21:24:25Z")
> [@Hector\_St\_Clare](#): > > Um, what is your evidence for either of those two claims? That women would be more equally represented in the extreme points of human achievement – more great success and more great failure – is actually suggested by the evidence of the past few decades, where women are becoming better represented. We have a few women Senators today, a few women CEOs of Fortune 500 corporations, and a few women Admirals and Generals. This was not true 75 years ago, before the “women’s liberation” movement. Do you claim that the trend would stop short of full equality if equal empowerment were attained? if so, what is the evidence for it? ---
**Author:** ![Thudlow\_Boink](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/thudlow_boink/32/320_2.png) [@Thudlow\_Boink](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Thudlow_Boink)\ **Post date:** [February 16, 2015, 9:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/women-the-more-moral-sex/712792/30 "2015-02-16T21:37:26Z")
> [@Trinopus](#): > > Do you claim that the trend would stop short of full equality if equal empowerment were attained? if so, what is the evidence for it? Not fair—you were the one making the claim. But there may or may not be evidence for the claim that there are more men than women in the extremes of various bell curves; [one thread I could find](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=721007) on the issue seems to be inconclusive. ---
**Author:** ![ITR\_champion](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/c67d28/32.png) [@ITR\_champion](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ITR_champion)\ **Post date:** [February 16, 2015, 11:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/women-the-more-moral-sex/712792/31 "2015-02-16T23:38:32Z")
> [@kayaker](#): > > All the stats being thrown around are the numbers of males/females who commit crime and are _ **caught** _. > > Is it possible that women commit way more crime than men, but are much better at avoiding detection? Well of course. Given that women do all the housework, they’ll know exactly where to hide the body, conceal the drugs, and so forth. “Hmmm, no one ever uses these towels at the back of the linen closet. I could stash a couple kilos of cocaine there and it wouldn’t be found.” ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [February 16, 2015, 11:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/women-the-more-moral-sex/712792/32 "2015-02-16T23:56:52Z")
What’s that, sonny? You say, “Women – more oral sex!”? I guess I can endorse that sentiment . . . ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [February 17, 2015, 12:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/women-the-more-moral-sex/712792/33 "2015-02-17T00:07:13Z")
[Obligatory Kipling.](http://www.potw.org/archive/potw96.html) ---
**Author:** ![wolfpup](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wolfpup/32/10618_2.png) [@wolfpup](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wolfpup)\ **Post date:** [February 17, 2015, 12:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/women-the-more-moral-sex/712792/34 "2015-02-17T00:53:38Z")
> [@Blake](#): > > … But women are less likely to be employed as engineers, less likely to be on company boards, less likely to be in the top 10% of earners in their profession. But that can not possibly be the result of men being more aggressive, competitive and risk taking. It must be indicative of rampant sex discrimination in our society. and should be corrected by ensuring that more women are placed into those positions. > > Bizarre. Not bizarre at all. There was a famous episode of the 50s series _Father Knows Best_ called [_Betty the Engineer_](http://spacefem.livejournal.com/580068.html) that you ought to see. The sitcom was famous for its little bits of alleged common wisdom and moralizing, and this particular episode first came to my attention in a book about the cultural history of television and its reflection of society. There’s more info at the link but the short version of the story is that Betty, the daughter of the Perfect Family featured in the series, shows aptitude and interest in being an engineer, and joins a survey crew. The guidance counselors at the school are dumbstruck, the family is horrified, and the engineers tease her mercilessly. Eventually she can’t take it any more and quits, comes home in tears, but lo and behold – one of the handsome engineers comes over with a box of chocolates to ask her out on a date. Betty puts on a pretty dress, and the whole family smiles as Betty has clearly learned the error of her ways, and now realizes that her destiny in life is to look pretty, be a Loving Housewife, bear children and Serve and Obey Her Man. The End. > [@even\_sven](#): > > Let’s think this through. > > 50 years ago, there were basically no female engineers or CEOs. Women who worked worked in a narrow range of fields- teachers, nurses, secretaries, etc. And this was supposed to be human nature. > > But along came feminism, telling us that it wasn’t necessarily human nature, but result of systematic discrimination. And so they worked to dismantle some of this discrimination. > > And _boom_, like magic, there were suddenly a number of female engineers and CEOs. And that number has been steadily growing, basically at the pace that discrimination is reversing. > > That leaves the “women don’t have it in their nature to lead or do technical jobs” people with two explainations. One is that human nature underwent a massive transformation in the last fifty years, which seems kind of unlikely. The other is that we were wrong about what we thought was human nature 50 years ago (oops), but we’ve got it right now, and 2015 American society is the actual real reflection of human nature. Exactly. And on a different note, I think the only thing this thread is likely to demonstrate is the very bad use of statistics. There are some basic underlying realities, to be sure. Men are larger and stronger than women, and infested with testosterone which makes them comparatively more hairy and aggressive. Men serve evolutionary purposes by an innate desire to mate with anything and everything that moves, women serve it by an innate desire to be selective in their mates and protective and nurturing of their offspring. Beyond that, statistical conclusions about behaviors can get really murky because there are so many dependencies and complicating factors. We are talking, after all, about human society and human relationships. If a surprisingly large percentage of women murder their husbands, for instance, maybe it’s because there is a surprising amount of domestic violence against women. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [February 17, 2015, 1:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/women-the-more-moral-sex/712792/35 "2015-02-17T01:12:29Z")
[RationalWiki:](http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Sexism) > [@](#): > > Conservatives will generally argue that pay discrimination and glass ceiling are not a factor of sexual discrimination, but are in fact a reflection of women’s own choices to work for less, their choices to put family first, as well as their choices to take time off to have those silly babies of theirs. This argument has been fully dispelled, however, by looking at women in legal and medical positions who have chosen not to have children, or have chosen to only take time off for the 2 months of birth and recovery - equivalent to men taking off for a long holiday sabbatical. Even when choices exactly the same to their male counter parts are made, women are still making 20% lower salaries, and do not achieve partner as fast if at all. [5] Still, conservatives persist in arguing that such discrimination isn’t happening. > > \ > > 5.↑ [http://www.law360.com/employment/articles/163381/women-attys-face-2m-lifetime-pay-disparity-study](http://www.law360.com/employment/articles/163381/women-attys-face-2m-lifetime-pay-disparity-study) ---
**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:** [February 17, 2015, 1:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/women-the-more-moral-sex/712792/36 "2015-02-17T01:41:01Z")
> [@ITR\_champion](#): > > Well of course. Given that women do all the housework, they’ll know exactly where to hide the body, conceal the drugs, and so forth. “Hmmm, no one ever uses these towels at the back of the linen closet. I could stash a couple kilos of cocaine there and it wouldn’t be found.” That’s why Skyler White came out clean but Walter, not so much… ---
**Author:** ![Ambivalid](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/a5b964/32.png) [@Ambivalid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ambivalid)\ **Post date:** [February 17, 2015, 2:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/women-the-more-moral-sex/712792/37 "2015-02-17T02:31:42Z")
> [@Rune](#): > > The impulse that makes men more likely to be involved in a dangerous street race or a pub brawl is also the impulse that makes men more likely to dive into a freezing river or rush into a burning building to save a random stranger. Is it? I find this hard to accept. Yes, they are both impulses but they are not the same impulse. The former actions are motivated by lack of self control and a selfish desire to have fun; the latter actions are motivated by selflessness and courage. I can easily see many men having the ability to impulsively engage in street racing and/or bar fights and never ever having the balls or willingness to rush into a burning building to save a stranger. ---
**Author:** ![Slithy\_Tove](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/slithy_tove/32/18248_2.png) [@Slithy\_Tove](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Slithy_Tove)\ **Post date:** [February 17, 2015, 2:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/women-the-more-moral-sex/712792/38 "2015-02-17T02:54:26Z")
> [@BrainGlutton](#): > > [RationalWiki:](http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Sexism) Thing about rationalwiki: you see an article you agree with and go “yeah, right on!” Then you find an article on a topic important to you, that you’ve studied in depth for years, and they totally bone it with an ignorant, dismissive attitude. Then you read another article like that. Then another. ---
**Author:** ![Arkcon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/96bed5/32.png) [@Arkcon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Arkcon)\ **Post date:** [February 17, 2015, 3:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/women-the-more-moral-sex/712792/39 "2015-02-17T03:04:11Z")
> [@protoboard](#): > > The stats seem to suggest so, don’t they? Unless women are simply more adept at getting away with things, men just commit more crimes, it’s a fact. > > Men … they’re the ones that start wars usually. … > > Can anyone challenge my view? I know I’m jumping in this thread a little early, your premise may refine itself soon. But, with regard to this point … are you kidding me? You don’t realize this is a bit of specious reasoning, almost cherry picking. Male leaders start most of the wars? Did you adjust that statistic for the relative proportions of male vs female leaders? Maybe many other situations that you could posit are likewise skewed by sampling errors of that type. ---
**Author:** ![Slithy\_Tove](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/slithy_tove/32/18248_2.png) [@Slithy\_Tove](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Slithy_Tove)\ **Post date:** [February 17, 2015, 3:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/women-the-more-moral-sex/712792/40 "2015-02-17T03:26:05Z")
\*\*Jonas Salk. \*\*You could argue that when he was going to school, female applicants would have been steered into nursing careers. Still, he was the guy who stopped polio. But something that had nothing to do with his benefitting from sexism: he refused to become rich off it if that left any possibility of keeping the vaccine less available. **Jenny McCarthy**. A product of a more enlightened era. From an upper-middle-class family, with the privilege that exceptionally attractive people enjoy in our society. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/women-the-more-moral-sex/712792.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/women-the-more-moral-sex/712792.md?page=3)