This topic has obviously become highly socio-political. The current fashion is that there are basically NO biological sex-type differences; that any sex-type differences are socially imposed and generally disadvantageous to women. I think a meta-study style article like this useful to show all the rich and varied science on the matter and to help spark a dialogue around "what if?". If we assume even half of the implications of the cited studies here are true, then that is plenty of sex-type difference to recon with. The citings show as many differences favoring women as they do men. They are just that -- differences, each with their requisite pros and cons. It just makes sense that an intelligent evolutionary process would have lead to the sexes as being best as partners with a division of complimentary abilities and preferences. I can't see us making much progress on the societal equalization across sexes if we don't embrace and harness the very real differences that exist between them.
From the article.<p>"Men, on average, can more easily juggle items in working memory. They have superior visuospatial skills: They’re better at visualizing what happens when a complicated two- or three-dimensional shape is rotated in space, at correctly determining angles from the horizontal, at tracking moving objects and at aiming projectiles."<p>From this article: <a href="http://mitadmissions.org/blogs/entry/picture-yourself-as-a-stereotypical-male" rel="nofollow">http://mitadmissions.org/blogs/entry/picture-yourself-as-a-s...</a><p>"As it turns out, there is zero statistically significant gender difference in mental rotation ability after test-takers are asked to imagine themselves as stereotypical men for a few minutes. None. An entire standard deviation of female underperformance is negated on this condition, just as a man’s performance is slightly hindered if he instead imagines himself as a woman."<p>What gives?
I'd like to think society can <i>truely</i> embrace diversity instead of uniformity.<p>Sadly, racial and sex discrimination still exist leaving society stuck with imperfect solutions to deep rooted problems.
Here in Sweden if you are of the opinion that men and women are biologically different, people will call you "racist", bigot, idiot, and so on.<p>It is terrifying, difference has somehow become connected to the thought that one gender should be inferior.<p>Personally i don't care particularly much WHY the sexes are different, we are different that is enough knowledge for me in my life at the moment.<p>I do however care about people communicating facts that are not based on science.
Men are, by far, more violent. This is a major weakness, or "defect". Why women shouldn't have their own, peculiar, weaknesses? I think that even psychiatric conditions like depression, borderline, ADD, etc. manifest very differently in men and women.
Food for thought:<p>* Trans people of Reddit, what was something you weren't expecting to be told, find out, or experience when going through your transition (<a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/AskReddit/comments/4g1pgu/serious_trans_people_of_reddit_what_was_something/" rel="nofollow">https://www.reddit.com/r/AskReddit/comments/4g1pgu/serious_t...</a>)<p>So yes, even hormones by themselves make changes, going beyond cultural pressure and upbringing. Exposure for different chromosomes, and hormones, though all live (including prenatal development) may have even stronger impact.
The brain is a physical, biological organ just like the heart, eyes, etc. So yes, just as there are minor physical differences between men and women in other ways, there are minor physical differences in the brain as well. Across a sufficiently large sample set, men will on average be slightly better at some things, and women will on average be slightly better at other things.<p>For the reactionary crowd, please note I said "minor differences" and "slightly better". There's a ton of overlap and much more similarity than difference. Also I want to be clear to separate biological differences from culturally trained differences. The things we do and are exposed to growing up certainly have an effect on brain development, just as they do on the rest of the body.<p>To further that last point, IMO it is almost certain that culturally assigned gender roles have played a part in our evolutionary biology. So this is not a discussion that can really be separated from the role of culture.<p>I hope that continuing research in this field helps educate people to see that men and women are far more alike than different.
Seems like the "google memo guy" just expressed many of the view points of the youtube famous psychologist and UofT professor Jordan Peterson. I'm not sure if its related, but Jordan's channel was shut down for a day for an unexplained reason, fueling many conspiracy theories.
The Google memo guy would of made a lot more inroad had he referenced this material.<p>Nothing in this article screams controversial to me. I also don't see a problem with wanting to hire more women in tech. These differences outlined do not all appear advantageous or otherwise disadvantage one gender over another and lend better credence to being a great engineer. Anything that makes that claim is conflating a false narrative on extremely weak grounds.<p>Having said that, the memo is a trigger for people on multiple extremes. The reaction from both sides of this reminds me of forums on parenting nature vs nurture.
Can someone point out to me an example of someone arguing there is no difference between men and women? I regularly see people arguing against this viewpoint, but I am not sure I have ever seen the viewpoint itself.
Here's an interesting piece by a female Associate Professor of Sociology at Stockholm University.<p><a href="https://econjwatch.org/file_download/943/SternSept2016.pdf?mimetype=pdf" rel="nofollow">https://econjwatch.org/file_download/943/SternSept2016.pdf?m...</a><p>The paper is titled "Undoing Insularity: A Small Study
of Gender Sociology’s Big Problem" and it's core theme is that gender sociology insulates itself from ideas that are contrary to status quo. Do give it a read.
The problem is that rather than evaluating actual individuals who of course vary widely, these tendencies are used as justification for pre-judgement or inequality.
How do we now this isn't something that is being caused due to the female being suppressed in our history? This studies are biased due to the fact that females haven't been treated equally for centuries and this affects on how the female see the world, affecting the real meaning of the study.<p>It's like taking a male that you have treated emotionally bad and you tell him thru all his life he can't do this and that and a male where you tell him he must be strong, he must do this and that. Boths are males and I bet you will find the same differences between these two males and between a male and a female.
As a trans person, I have read that changing the hormones changes the brain shape quite a bit towards the cross sex sizes.<p>It will be a very interesting experience...
Similarly, some leftists claim that race is a social construct because there is more genetic variation within a race than across them. Except you have genetic tests that easily identify race: <a href="https://www.wired.com/2007/12/ps-dna/" rel="nofollow">https://www.wired.com/2007/12/ps-dna/</a> and medical studies that indicate the race of patients studied, because it is a medically significant concept: <a href="http://news.softpedia.com/news/Different-Races-Are-Genetically-Prone-to-Different-Diseases-44056.shtml" rel="nofollow">http://news.softpedia.com/news/Different-Races-Are-Genetical...</a>.
My response here will be unpopular but. Yes, there are cognitive difference, but it doesn't matter. Building software is a complex social event and requires incalculable amount of different skills sets and team effort. To use single differences to claim men are better at software like the Google guy did is just stupid. It's unscientific conjecture born out of likely deep seated issues many nerds, like me and others, have with the opposite sex. In other words programming likely has become a "safe place" for a certain group of people and they want to protect that space. However, in doing so they end up with a bankrupt culture which likely has a negative effect on the quality of the very software they write.<p>EDIT: in reference to my "Google guy" remark. I think this fight is ultimately about growth vs fixed mindsets. My hunch is self proclaimed "conservatives" have a fixed mindset. Meaning they think people are born a certain way and can't grow.
For thousands of years men have run society and women have been homemakers. We are biologically wired with those roles in our DNA. Today we are trying to upset those roles, and It causes a huge amount of psychological problems. Women are not designed to run their own lives. They are designed to follow the significant man in Their life. Today since they are expected to be like men, they are completely overwhelmed and are now doped up on drugs like xanax to cope.<p>More freedom is not always a good thing. Studies show that with more rights women are actually less happy today than they were 40 years ago.
1) There are sex-differentiated characteristics of the brain.<p>2) Those sex-differentiated characteristics tend to be a mosaic in the brain [1].<p>3) Despite being a mosaic, statistics can still differentiate sex based on individual brain characteristics [2].<p>4) Therefore the current social structures that differentiate the roles men and women play in society are biologically derived /s /s /s /s<p>A long time ago, it was decided that women and men had their place because god ordained it. When that fell out of fashion (still fashionable in many places), shallow thinkers used sed to make it seem more respectable.<p>Putting this into the context of the recent discussion about the role of sex/gender in the tech industry, let's suppose that biological differences influence a person' career choice. Let's also acknowledge that until the last 60 or so years women were basically barred from pursuing technical work in great numbers by social obstacles. The question is, when did those social obstacles become so negligible that only biological factors are left as plausible reasons for gender disparities in, say, programming?<p>Very few people disagree with the idea that society should treat people equally irrespective of their gender. There's just a contingent of people who say that such social parity has already been achieved (or maybe we've gone <i>too far</i>), and another contingent who say that parity has not been achieved. If we're already in an egalitarian society, then clearly the only reason for significant differences in the division of labor and social participation between different genders must be of biological origin.<p>In other words, the contentious issue of biological differences between men and women isn't contentious because of the biology, but because of the assumptions that need to be made in order to correlate those differences with the structure of society.<p>[1] <a href="http://www.pnas.org/content/112/50/15468" rel="nofollow">http://www.pnas.org/content/112/50/15468</a><p>[2] <a href="http://www.pnas.org/content/113/14/E1968.short" rel="nofollow">http://www.pnas.org/content/113/14/E1968.short</a>