Don't dumb girls down

http://www.smh.com.au/lifestyle/dont-dumb-girls-down-20110829-1jh86.html

by CarolineW • 15 years ago

344 261 15 years ago

smh.com.au

sgns3• 15 years ago

Thanks, that was interesting. Not least the comments, including one from "Too Smart", which said: "Being dumb is much better than having to play dumb. It does no good for a girl to be too smart," and suggested complimenting the girl for her sweet looks.

Sort of trollish? Maybe, but it also is true that 'good looks' show, and have immediate 'consequences', whereas the intelligence that's innate to us doesn't show, and the real challenge of intelligence maybe is to find a way to do something with it. Something that makes life meaningful. Which takes constant work, self-confidence, and daring.

jacques_chester• 15 years ago

A lovely pot-pourri of anecdotes and hand-picked exceptional examples.

wgren3• 15 years ago

It's a blog post, not a research paper. If course it will use anecdotes. Do you have any counter examples to show an exceptional bias in their "hand-picking"?

Symmetry2• 15 years ago

The author used those because they are more likely to convince the median reader than scientific studies. If you want those, Google Scholar is just a click away.

philjackson• 15 years ago

These are good tips, here's how my conversation generally goes with other people's children:

"Hello, I'm Phil" "Hi, I'm Maya"

Then just stare at one another until another adult speaks.

sgentle• 15 years ago

This reminds me of a story that I wish I could find again. It was in the Reader's Digest Young Peoples' Annual from sometime in the 60s. I read it in the 90s, so some of the advice ("don't go dutch too often") was truly perplexing, but this particular story was about a girl who played baseball.

She always sat and watched the boys play baseball. One boy in particular caught her eye. He asked if she wanted to play and she jumped at the chance. She wanted to impress him, so she pitched the ball hard and fast. With each player she struck out, he seemed less and less happy. Finally, it came her turn to bat. By this point, he was hardly paying attention to her at all. She swung out. "Oops", she said, "I guess I'm not doing it right". His eyes perked up and he came over to talk to her. "You should hold the bat like this", he said, "and don't swing so hard". She smiled at him. She could bat just fine, of course, but it's important to have priorities.

I wish I had a copy because I'd love to read it again. I suspect that the consequences of treating girls like pretty dolls, rather than the explorers, creators and leaders that they can be, will be felt for a while still; but I hope a few decades from now I get to read this article again and laugh at how things have changed.

1277• 15 years ago

Human biology is not that quick to change. It demonstrates a large amount of hubris to even think it should be. Women marry up and across dominance hierarchies. Artificially boosting the career success of women just causes misery on the long run for men and for society.

I thought that the girl in your story was very smart, and even if people had treated her like a pretty doll for her entire life she would still be the same. Intelligent, critical and capable.

ordinary2• 15 years ago

What makes you think this is a purely biological issue?

justatdotin• 15 years ago

hey, I hear you, bro: I can tell you from personal experience that it sure is ruff bein a rich white man in this day and age ...

vectorpush3• 15 years ago

>It demonstrates a large amount of hubris to even think it should be.

So what? It's this same hubris which bucks against the biological directive to impregnate every fertile female that enters your field of vision. Since when do humans settle for the biological imperative?

pharrington• 15 years ago

>Human biology is not that quick to change

This implies that biology is why in most cultures men have higher status potential than women. Not only does this ignore lots of horribly obvious things, but in turn implies an understanding of how physiology affects behavior. Besides current science barely having a rough idea of some hormones' areas of effect (eg low testosterone levels having some positive or negative effect on aggression), we can't begin to aggregate how the average minute physical differences between men and women would affect something as high level as behavior. We're still learning the physical effects. Trying to reason beyond that is irrelevant at best. Meanwhile, centuries of oppression and concrete, prescribed gender roles seem alot more insightful.

wgren3• 15 years ago

>Human biology is not that quick to change.

No, but a lot of things with regards to our current expected behaviour of genders is in fact social, not biological. A lot of 18th century male behaviour would today be regarded as effeminate. Red was once the color of choice for baby boys, and blue for girls.

>Artificially boosting the career success of women just causes misery on the long run for men

Hang on, did anyone propose affirmative action here or something? All the blog talked about was trying to praise girls for their smarts rather than their looks. If this is enough to cause misery for you, I think you have self-esteem issues. (Edit: Oops, that was needlessly confrontational and personal. Apologies for last sentence.)

>I thought that the girl in your story was very smart, and even if people had treated her like a pretty doll for her entire life she would still be the same. Intelligent, critical and capable.

Perhaps, but as mentioned in the article, some girls as young as 5 think they are "too fat" and try to go on a diet. It is clearly an issue for some.

pygy_• 15 years ago

> ... even if people had treated her like a pretty doll for her entire life she would still be the same. Intelligent, critical and capable.

Intelligence withers if it isn't stimulated. The other traits are completely acquired.

Education is not only about career, but about preventing stupidity at large. See [1], for example, keeping Poe's law[2] in mind.

[1] http://imgur.com/MVZ2h

[2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poes_law

Tichy23• 15 years ago

"Teaching girls that their appearance is the first thing you notice tells them that looks are more important than anything."

Hate to say it, but what if they are? Lots of studies show that pretty people get further in life.

Not that I mind girls being interested in other things, but perhaps the ideology should be kept in check.

Even if a girl doesn't care about her looks, other people will, and she has to learn to deal with it.

derrida4• 15 years ago

"Lots of studies show that pretty people get further in life." [citation needed]

Tichy23• 15 years ago

http://lmgtfy.com/?q=prettier+people+get+further+in+life

You know, by saying "citation needed" what you actually say is "I don't really care for your opinion". If I wasn't so desperate to procrastinate, I should just ignore you. Why waste energy to educate you if you are obviously not interested in learning?

billswift• 15 years ago

I don't think requests for citations by replying commenters is worthwhile.

If a comment piques your interest, or simply your curiosity, Google Scholar can provide support (or disproof) readily and to a much greater, and especially more broad ranging, extent than is possible in a comment. And you will find a citation quicker than waiting for the original commenter to provide one, even if the person actually replies with a citation rather than just ignoring you.

If you can't find support, then that is a good point to bring up in a reply.

ADDED: Please note that I am not against people providing links to supporting information. The best way to get an upvote from me is to provide a link to an interesting paper or site.

derrida4• 15 years ago

I apologize. I perhaps should have said 'What studies say that?'.

rmc6• 15 years ago

Perhaps we should change the world's attitudes then.

Tichy23• 15 years ago

Should go into Biotech then, I suppose.

mbesto• 15 years ago

I don't think this has anything to do with attitudes but is natural. Isn't attractiveness a sign of health? (for example - [1] the waist-to-hip ratio)

Are we to defy natural selection?

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Waist-hip_ratio

gaius• 15 years ago

There are similar studies that tall men get promoted quicker. Girls at least have developed a means to compensate!

jwingy2• 15 years ago

As a guy, and a geek, I definitely find intelligence highly attractive (and I think most of you would agree with me). Since geeks will eventually inherit the earth, wouldn't it be advantageous to start teaching our women how they can get ahead on this curve by flaunting their intelligence? :)

derrida4• 15 years ago

As a guy, this type of thinking once again puts the value on women as 'attractiveness'. Why isn't intelligence good for its own sake?

jwingy2• 15 years ago

I never said intelligence wasn't good for its own sake, nor was I trying to imply a woman's worth is only in her level of attractiveness. Certainly in a ideal world we would all aspire to goals without concern for outside opinion, but alas we don't live in a vacuum.

kamaal11• 15 years ago

Well if you start doing that, you would spark off a new debate.

"Don't tell girls how intelligent they are".

Because then the very analogical argument will be used to say - telling girls they are intelligent is making them under perform in other areas.

In short, if you are not ready work hard and do something on yourself by your work alone. There are plenty of reasons you can use to justify what you are.

lutorm3• 15 years ago

In fact, you should not tell anyone how intelligent they are. Not because it makes them underperform in other areas, but because it makes them underperform in that area exactly by failing to teach them that it's hard work that matters.

See e.g. http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=the-secret-...

erikb6• 15 years ago

I often read such articles from women, but never from men. After looking deeply at myself and how the world around me acts, I feel that it is really true: Women ARE evaluated mostly by their looks. Women who look good, wear good clothes, have a good makeup, will get what they want much more easily then others. To some degree that is also true for men. It is just how the world IS. So instead of teaching girls about the value of other things, don't we do them a favour, teaching them to care about good looks? Does caring about good looks exclude caring about smartness and education? Is my observation totally wrong?

erikb6• 15 years ago

and... is that the author: http://www.lisabloom.com/ ? Isn't she pretty?

_debug_• 15 years ago

Her web site features her looks more than her books. (In case it changes : 80% of the space is occupied by a photo of hers, and 20% by textual content). Do as I say, not as I do.

Tichy23• 15 years ago

Also next up: the story how she spent an entire evening reading books with an ugly girl.

derrida4• 15 years ago

You are confusing things that are objective facts about the world (described by 'is' statements) with things that are created by norms (indicated by 'should' statements) which can be changed. That women are seemingly only valued for their looks is a norm that should and can change.

erikb6• 15 years ago

I see your point. I understand that you don't think it is a natural thing, that people care about good looks. What do you say about these famous experiments that just born babys, not able to speak or walk or listen, are already spending more time looking at pictures of beautiful people then not beautiful people? I don't mean that you are completely wrong, though. Some part of what is actually percieved as beautiful is in fact norm, like which clothes are more beautiful and so on. But there are other things like thin, sporty bodys, healthy skin, the size of certain body parts, which can all be found in animals, too.

Anyway I will think about how norms can influence the situation and maybe adapt my opinion accordingly.

ordinary2• 15 years ago

I don't think you'd be doing people a favour by teaching them to accept things that won't make them happy. Do you think that people who don't worry about not being beautiful are less happy than people who do, considering that many (most?) people are not, in fact, beautiful? Do you think the world would be a worse place if more girls wanted to win the Nobel Peace Prize rather than America's Next Top Model?

erikb6• 15 years ago

I understand that you argue that worrying about good looks can be hassle instead of an improvement in life condition. I can only agree. Didn't think about that when I wrote my comment! My argument is about another point though. I think if you reach that point of being good looking, with that attribute alone you can have less frustration then other people, because others are more likely to give you what you want and care about you. Think about the last time you saw a fat and ugly person cry and how much you cared about it and then the last time you saw a beautiful woman cry and how much you cared about that. Both arguments are true, though. Thanks for your addition!

hessenwolf2• 15 years ago

Looking like a contestant for America's next top model is not really going to get a girl far in her career, though...

Both men and women should care, in detail, about their aesthetics when at work. They should be healthy and fit, and, unless they are very sure they have the fashion sense to get away with interesting clothes, be conservatively and neatly dressed. Anything less smacks of imcompetence, poor organisation skills, lack of respect for others (who do have to suffer looking at you), and laziness.

antihero5• 15 years ago

Let's put it another way - if you teach a girl that her good looks are super super important, and she's bombarded with adverts telling her ways to improve, and images of people on TV that are portrayed vastly superior to her physically, then she is being set up to feel that no matter what she does, she's never good enough. Whilst us boys can "hit the gym" or "hit the books" and our manliness and success can exude, a girl has to chase beauty products, botox, and boob jobs in order to progress with what she's been born with. Or perhaps become anorexic to be as thin as the models and celebrities that form the vast majority of what women are told to aspire to.

This is an awful, awful system. Men are valued on something that is in many respects healthy - physical fitness, ambition, mental progress. Whereas girls are valued on something superficial and damaging - thinness, "beauty". This is what the "beauty" industry does - capitalise on this desire like a shark and not only provide ways for girls to improve their looks, but actively perpetrate the myth that women need to look younger or slimmer or have 100% perfect skin. The beauty industry is a fucking disease.

erikb6• 15 years ago

I can only agree. The beauty industry makes a sick thing out of the basic idea. And if the main article we comment about here means fighting that, then I totally agree. We shouldn't teach our daughters to follow in the foot steps of models and super stars. That would also be lying about what is good for them. In the same way I think it is lying if we tell them that looks don't matter and she should value herself according to other things more. She will be very surprised if she gets out into the real world and sees that most people actually don't care about her, because she doesn't care about her looks at all. Too little and too much both is wrong, I think. I hope I could show you that my argument is not the opposite of yours.

kamaal11• 15 years ago

C'mmon.

I am thin, I can't call myself super good looking either. I am not very extrovert and not too much into sports.

But I can't use this as a reason to be bad at other things. Present ability, hygiene , looking good, neat and clean matter to both the genders. But if a person is not very attractive by natural look, that is no reason to not perform well in life by personal choice. That is not a reason, not to work hard, not to try, not to give your full.

Blaming things apart from oneself only goes so far. And doesn't help anybody.

Just because I sucked at sports, I can't use the same reason to be bad at programming.

Tichy23• 15 years ago

Just by telling somebody they are pretty you are NOT endorsing the beauty industry and boob jobs. How about teaching people how to deal with the media and PR industry properly instead?

By the way, there are beauty products targeted at men, too.

Also, telling somebody they are pretty does NOT imply that you consider anorexic looks to be pretty. In fact, it might give that person a good feeling about herself which just might counter the urge to become anorexic.

Egregore2• 15 years ago

What looking good means biologically? It's actually how men appreciate the health and fertility of the women - the healthier she is the prettier she will look for most men.

gonehome• 15 years ago

There are quite a few parallels with the way women are pressured to be pretty and men are pressured to be wildly successful. Both are likely damaging if allowed to increase uncontrolled and can lead to a variety of different mental health related issues. Just something to be aware of.

5hoom• 15 years ago

I think the issue is not that being attractive is bad, it's just that often that's the _only_ message that is consistently heard by young girls.

Girls might hear positive messages about being smart, creative, independent, etc. from all sorts of well intentioned sources, but there isn't the same sort of powerful, all pervasive weight attached to them as the message that being attractive is important.

Appearance is the 'common standard' of value for a female in many societies. I think that is the real problem.

erikb6• 15 years ago

The question is, does that come from society or would it be the same without society? I think there are also a lot of natural factors involved that drive this way of thinking. My thesis is, that to a bigger part society mimics the natural desire for beauty and attractiveness of women, not the other way around. What society creates by mimicing is absurd. No question about that. But that doesn't mean, most men would value a smart woman over a beautiful woman if there would be no society.

thaway3422574• 15 years ago

The way you praise a child can have an effect on their definition of success and their goals. For example, something as subtle as praising a child for his intelligence vs praising him for his hard work can make him too focused on the number of points he gets vs actually understanding and learning.

That means that when offered a choice between problems that allow them to get a lot of right answers vs a challenging problem, kids that were praised on their intelligence chose the easy problems (so they wouldn't look dumb) and kids praised on their hard work picked a problem where they would actually learn something and have to work hard. Also the ones praised for their intelligence interpreted failure to mean they weren't smart. The ones that were praised for hard work thought they didn't work hard enough and tried harder.

So maybe we wouldn't be doing them such a favor by teaching them to care about good looks instead of hard work, because when they fail they will think that they are too ugly and have bad self esteem. Praising them for something they have control over and can actually change (such as their education, interests or hard work) would be much better.

(you can read the article I skimmed for this answer "Intelligence praise can undermine motivation and performance" https://www.stanford.edu/dept/psychology/cgi-bin/drupalm/sys... )

jcnnghm• 15 years ago

I find these articles boorish. When I was a little boy I distinctly recall every stranger I met telling me how handsome I was because it's a superficial complement that can be delivered without great insight. Aunt's used to tell me that I'd "break some ladies hearts" because they didn't know me, and had no idea if I was intelligent or not. How intelligent can a five year old be, anyway? I didn't see little Maya pick any boogers at dinner, she is destined to be a civil engineer, at least. Even with all the complements, I don't recall developing an eating disorder or wearing makeup at an early age.

Men only earn 43% of bachelor's degrees. Isn't the real issue that men are not valuing education as much as women? Smart women have a huge advantage at this point, especially in the tech industry. If they start a company, the press can't stop talking about it. Women are more comfortable dealing with women, and men are more interested in talking to women. If four people with equal intelligence and experience apply for a job, an attractive man, and attractive woman, an average man, and an average woman, the attractive woman is hired first and the average man last. Women are far more socially mobile than men, women are being better educated than men, and many people are still crusading against some perceived injustice.

tmvphil• 15 years ago

> I don't recall developing an eating disorder or wearing makeup at an early age

Shouldn't you take this as evidence that there is something different in the way girls and boys are treated? In case you're not aware, eating disorders are horrifyingly prevalent among college-age women. [this statistic](http://www.anad.org/get-information/about-eating-disorders/e...) reports 25% engage in purging, and in my anecdotal experience, that number could be an underestimate. It would stretch my imagination to think of purging as being a biologically rooted phenomenon, so I'd say it has to have societal roots. Saying that women are statistically more likely to go to college, and therefore can't complain about a society that profoundly fucks with their psychology is analogous to saying that blacks are statistically over-represented in sports, so they can't complain about a society that holds them back in so many other ways.

chrischen3• 15 years ago

"Teaching girls that their appearance is the first thing you notice tells them that looks are more important than anything."

But when you see someone for the first time appearances are the first thing you notice... unless you can read minds.

Looks are important. Both men and women keep up appearances. Furthermore, you know how smart you are, and no amount of telling you your appearance is a great asset is going to make you dumber.

wgren3• 15 years ago

>But when you see someone for the first time appearances are the first thing you notice... unless you can read minds.

Yet when talking to boys, people generally don't say - "Oh, what a handsome boy you are, and how nicely you dress!" as an opening phrase. We don't sell these kind of tshirts to boys: http://boingboing.net/2011/08/31/jc-penny-t-shirt-now-pulled...

>Looks are important. [...] no amount of telling you your appearance is a great asset is going to make you dumber.

No, but it tells you what you should spend your time and energy on improving. Again, something we only do for girls.

chrischen3• 15 years ago

I'm sure if it were a little boy in pajamas the author would have had the same urge to say how cute he was.

> Again, something we only do for girls.

It's not as if all men let themselves go. It takes work, even for a man, to not become fat, smelly, and overly hairy.

I think the underlying cause for women to focus too much on appearances is because it is much easier for women, in current society, to marry into wealth and/or depend on a man. I think this has a much larger influence on women focusing more on their appearances than behavioral conditioning through constant complimenting.

The compliment is a signal. If the person is pretty and you say that, then it's a proper signal. If you tell a child they are smart because they did some random thing, it's not necessarily a proper signal. Sending a wrong signal is bad. In the case of telling a child s/he's smart when s/he's not, the child may not try as hard anymore because s/he may wrongfully think s/he's smart enough already... In the case of telling someone s/he's pretty, as long as it's true, there's nothing wrong with it because being pretty can actually have practical advantages. It is then up to the person to choose whether to leverage his/her physical assets or his/her mental assets to get what s/he wants in life.

_delirium2• 15 years ago

> Yet when talking to boys, people generally don't say - "Oh, what a handsome boy you are, and how nicely you dress!"

I agree it's not symmetrical, but I do hear this kind of thing directed at male children pretty frequently, especially in the relatives/family-friends type setting. "Oh what a handsome young man you have!" isn't uncommon at all. Though I do tend to associate it with older women, for some reason; at least as a young lad myself, I think it's a comment I heard mostly from older aunts.

overgryphon4• 15 years ago

Have you considered how much time and money women invest into their appearance?

Most men I know do little more than bathe regularly, comb their hair for a few seconds, and brush their teeth. Their wardrobes consist of a three or four pairs of shoes, some jeans, t-shirts, and a few dress pants, dress shirts, and ties for more formal events. They could probably replace their entire closet for a couple hundred dollars.

Most women I know spend time each morning on a shower, blow drying and styling their hair, and makeup. All in all somewhere between forty minutes and an hour. Reasonable quality makeup is expensive. Foundation? $30-40 Eye pencil? $10-20 Mascara, eye shadow, concealer, lip pencil, lipstick, blush. A women's makeup collection alone may cost almost as much to replace as most of my guy friend's entire wardrobe. Their closet? Many more shoes, skirts, dresses, jeans, bras, shirts. Women's clothes are in general more expensive than men's clothes.

The point? Women do much much more to keep up appearances than men. Saying "both men and women keep up appearances" is almost laughable.

kamaal11• 15 years ago

This article is talking only about one part of the story, while it can't be denied that people demand girls to look good. At the same time, girls themselves get into peer pressure easily. Very quickly in their lives they get the feeling that in order to be 'looked at' you have to be beautiful. I am not saying that guys don't suffer from this, but girls suffer from this more than guys.

Its like the TV channels competing for TRP's. The demand for a something good exists, but the fact is that the demand is fueled by the content providers and not viewers.

Now on a larger scale, the society doesn't dumb down girls. Its just the mere biological reasons prevent them from doing so many jobs that are common for men. Women have higher social pressures, physically and biologically they have more limitations when compared to men. They have bigger social pressures to deal with. All in all, this counts for most of the reasons why women don't get the incremental learning at the same rate as men.

Now come to look at the other part of it, there is huge difference between looking good/presentable and wild chase for beauty. Cosmetic products exist both for men and women, but their nature differ. Apart from your usual set of deodorants and usual kit et al, you don't mascara or lipstick for men. Not that such a thing is not desirable for men, but its just that men won't chase it at all.

Ultimately you truly get what you want.

paradoja• 15 years ago

    Not that such a thing is not desirable for men, but its just that men won't chase it at all.

Give it time for marketing departments to do their jobs...

raghava• 15 years ago

>> Give it time for marketing departments to do their jobs...

Absolutely. They are working overtime on this one. Recently, India has seen a sudden surge in cosmetics for men. http://www.google.co.in/search?q=male+cosmetics+india+filety...

saturn• 15 years ago

None of this advice applies to me, of course. As a man and therefore a child molesting rapist just waiting for my chance to strike, the idea that I could have any sort of conversation with a little girl - let alone sit down on a couch and talk privately - is simply laughable.

gyardley• 15 years ago

While parents, in general, distrust unknown men more than unknown women, that's not the situation described in the article. The woman was at a friend's house for a dinner party.

Unless some specific past behavior suggests that they shouldn't, parents do allow their friends to have conversations with their children. Don't ignore the advice in this article just because you want to make some unrelated point about a different set of gender relations.

StavrosK2• 15 years ago

I feel sad for your culture :/

funkah• 15 years ago

That was my thought too. I can't use this advice because I'm not supposed to be talking to little girls in the first place.

hack_edu• 15 years ago

There ought to be a Godwin's Law about threads talking about gender on the Internet. Given a certain concentration of comments on the subject, a sarcastic and baseless complaint of the assumption of male guilt (especially absurb, off topic comments about rape!) must appear.

burgerbrain5• 15 years ago

Well, is he wrong? I know I make an active effort to avoid children...

tintin• 15 years ago

This great article shouldn't be surrounded by those stupid banners dumbing down women.

orochimaru• 15 years ago

Of course people irrespective of their gender should be able to do what they want to, but hailing a genetic gift of smartness over a genetic gift of beauty, or vice-versa doesn't make sense. It's how evolution has worked up until now - it's pretty much a beauty pageant.

Trying to change a process that has evolved us into what we are is going to take time. Of course not all aspects of evolution are perfect, but this - favouring beauty over ugliness/fatness is pretty darn effective.

Without competition, we would all be slobs - no scratch that - unicellular organisms.

So, in conslusion - we are who we are - whether you want to fight and change that is your wish, but don't go preaching to others about what we should or should not do. I'm going to go tell all the little girls around me how cute they are. Maybe not at the same time though, lest I get mistaken for a paedophile. :P

lutorm3• 15 years ago

I don't know what your point is. Nowhere is the author making the point that you should hail any genetic gifts. And nowhere is she arguing that good looks are not beneficial.

Moreover, if you want to make Darwinian arguments, one could equally well say that without competition we'd all be as stupid as amoebas. I don't see where you get support for appearance being more favored than intelligence.

Furthermore, why do you focus on either of these attributes being genetic at all? If we assume that they are, then it shouldn't matter whether we encourage people to care about either their intelligence or appearance. But clearly there is a huge amount of nurture in both aspects, so the genetic aspect is just a red herring.

The real question is whether encouraging girls to focus on appearance over anything else is helpful or healthy.

hermannj314• 15 years ago

"be the change you want to see in the world"

The author is fighting an uphill battle on this one, but I appreciate her ideal. Never underestimate the power your words have on shaping a child's life.

ctek• 15 years ago

The desire to be attractive is hard-wired into female biology. Fundamentally, we exist to survive and reproduce. Millions of years of evolution have evolved visual cues that signal health - especially reproductive health in both men and women however women's interest in successfully advertising their reproductive health is absolutely essential to what they have evolved over millions of years to do - which is bear children.

High intelligence is not necessary to survive and reproduce successfully even in today's world which explains why most women (and probably most - but less men) would rather be "hot" than "smart". In general, during the reproductive phase of their lives (and long after that as well), women focus advertising their reproductive health, and men - their status.

High intelligence however is key to acquiring status - which is much more important for men than for women which in my mind explains why more men than women are interested in being smart.

Jem3• 15 years ago

If I'm understanding you correctly, you're saying that looking attractive for women is basically a biological imperative? The problem, as I see it, is that the evolved visual cues signalling good reproductive health are not in the slightest bit similar to what the media purport to be attractive today.

Look for example at Neolithic figurines... women with large bellies, ample bosoms, wide hips. That's not what's plastered all over magazines and TV.

1277• 15 years ago

I'm thinking that the fertility symbols where the woman is fit and thin far outnumber the ones where the woman is visibly obese. Wide hips, large bosom, healthy layer of fat, most certainly. But obesity? Rare. India, Egypt, Rome. All those sculptures look to be in the confines of healthy weight. I doubt that people living in that age had access to TV or magazines. Looks to me like you're quite obviously cherry-picking.

ron_di• 15 years ago

I read an interesting reply recently on Reddit about this. Essentially, the poster says that in what you refer to as Neolithic times, women with large bellies, ample bosoms, and wide hips were generally women who were healthy and had access to food and the ability to get it for themselves. Men were biologically attracted to this display of "wealth".

Contrast that to today, where having wealth means having the disposal to hire personal trainers, time to exercise, and not having to eat processed foods. Women of wealth will typically go to lengths to look a certain way (tan, skinny, etc.). I know that wealth is different from being in good reproductive health, but being wealthy definitely plays an important role in determining mates. As the definition of wealth changed, so did men's interest in women.

Sorry about the lack of citations, but it was a while ago and from a secondhand source, so I would take it with a grain of salt. It does sound reasonable though.

Egregore2• 15 years ago

Actually men also consider intelligence when looking for mates, for example for 2 equally attractive female most males will go for the smartest one.

Anecdotal evidence: I've been told that a lot of females get more attention from males when they use gadgets.

antihero5• 15 years ago

Is there any substance or is this just what essentially amounts to the conjecture of a high school student?

michaelchisari• 15 years ago

The desire to be attractive is hard-wired into female biology.

Well, that certainly fails to explain the Woodabe.

anujkk• 15 years ago

Whenever I think about "beauty" this poem automatically comes to my mind -

Beautiful faces are those that wear–

It matters little if dark or fair–

Whole-souled honesty printed there.

Beautiful eyes are those that show,

Like crystal panes where hearth-fires glow,

Beautiful thoughts that burn below.

Beautiful lips are those whose words

Leap from the heart like songs of birds,

Yet whose utterance prudence girds.

Beautiful hands are those that do

Work that is earnest and brave and true,

Moment by moment the long day through.

Beautiful feet are those that go

On kindly ministries to and fro,

Down lowliest ways if God wills it so.

Beautiful shoulders are those that bear

Ceaseless burdens of homely care,

With patient grace and daily prayer.

Beautiful twilight at set of sun,

Beautiful goal with race well won,

Beautiful rest with work well done.

Beautiful graves where grasses creep,

Where brown leaves fall, where drifts lie deep,

Over worn-out hands! Ah, beautiful sleep.

–Ellen P. Allerton

ErrantX3• 15 years ago

I was musing on this the other day (beware; anecdote alert!). I went out for some drinks with a friend of mine from a long time ago - he is certainly not the sharpest of individuals, but a laugh and good fun in small doses (even if a lot of the jokes include farts :S).

For some reason he is also constantly surrounded by very attractive women. I've seen him out and about before and thought "I'd like to have some of that!". But my first impression when we were hanging out was that all these girls shared two things in common - good looks and zero intelligence. Most of the fart jokes came from them.

Which was a bit of a shock!

It took me a while to figure out that most of them weren't actually thick. I managed to have a conversation with one of them later on; and found she was a psychology graduate (one of my favourite pet interests :)), had even published a research paper on her work. Which was just confusing... there was this smart good looking girl, and she was hanging around acting thick.

Then I worked it out... they were acting as they were expected to (either by our perception or theirs) on a night out; shove on the lipstick, revert to street talk, laugh at fart jokes and play dumb around the men. The psychologist actually even said this about her career (paraphrasing): "oh.. well I never really tell people that, it puts them off".

Which is just a fucking sad reflection on society.

vectorpush3• 15 years ago

I could recount similar anecdotes, I think there is a lot to be said for the way that women who put their intelligence on display are treated. A talented intelligent male with an ego is regarded as a condescending elitist genius, but the same traits ascribed to a female makes her an intolerable bitch.

Meai• 15 years ago

That is such a stereotype. If you are genuinely nice and intelligent, I can assure you that men would be very eager to battle their wits against yours. Most women just don't hold up to their own claims and they see such "attacks" as personal ; but the reality is that men are suddenly treating you as equal and you don't like it. Men do not discard a valuable member of a team just because of gender, that is ridiculous.

In my experience women are more prone to claiming intelligence despite actual intelligence. Please be aware that I do not claim to be intelligent myself. In fact, I'm pretty darn stupid. It just makes it that much more apparent when I'm faced with such claims.

petercooper• 15 years ago

I'm think, like me, you're British :-) So you probably know that British men generally go out and do exactly the same thing (minus the lipstick). The average British bloke on a night out is, unless he's on the pull, as dumb as a rock, generally rat-arsed and talking total bollocks with his mates ;-)

Dumbing down on a night out isn't a gender-based pursuit.

ErrantX3• 15 years ago

Yes, you're dead right there... I guess we are all lying to each other.

rimantas2• 15 years ago

You know, one of the two things from the lecture about education I had some 17 years ago which still stuck is this:

  Pay more attention to girls. Men will behave they way women let them to.

civilian• 15 years ago

Check your quote's grammar? It doesn't make sense to me. :-/

antihero5• 15 years ago

It's one of the shameful effects of living in a society purely based one image. Most guys I know (anecdotal) love women that have brains, as do I. Studies dictate that men prefer women that are above average weight to below average weight. However, magazines tell us women need to be celebrity absorbed, stick thin bimbos who are utter bullshit. Why? Because that demographic is easier to sell to.

ArbitraryLimits• 15 years ago

I for one certainly do not expect smart, attractive women to make fart jokes when out on the town.

scott_s• 15 years ago

Your conclusion is that they were acting the way they were expected to - which is certainly possible. I'm not sure. But I don't think you considered another possibility, which is this night out was a release, and it was refreshing to go out and not think deep thoughts. Or, in other words, to go out and have fun.

Yes, when you're with good friends you know well, you can seamlessly go back and forth between serious conversation and fun, goofing around conversation. But when you're around new people, and you want to have a good time, I think we (as a species) tend towards goofing around conversation. If I've been working a lot, a night out where I don't think Deep Thoughts is exactly what I want.

And for the record, I tend not to go into too much detail about my work unless I'm seriously prodded because, really, what I do is boring to most people.

So, my point: there are alternate explanations.

orangecat2• 15 years ago

For some reason he is also constantly surrounded by very attractive women.

"Some reason" is that he projects confidence and high social status. IQ scores don't really enter into it.

Which was just confusing... there was this smart good looking girl, and she was hanging around acting thick.

Note that she was hanging out with him, not you, even though you would appreciate her intelligence. She's not acting dumb to attract men in general, she's acting dumb to attract men that she finds attractive.

chubs• 15 years ago

What a beautiful story of her interaction with that little girl. I hope i'm like that with my daughter when she's that age :)

pjscott• 15 years ago

That's also a good way to interact with little boys, incidentally. It makes you a much more interesting adult than someone who just says and does the same boring things as every other adult who is suddenly faced with a child.

JonnieCache10• 15 years ago

To all the people in this thread who seem so absolutely sure that the gender differences are strictly biological, do you fancy telling us what exactly makes you so sure? Last time I checked there was no evidence to support this idea.

Obviously there are easily observed physiological differences in brain structure and in the endocrine system etc, however it is a massive leap to go from that to asserting that observed differences in behaviour are down to this rather than down to societal factors.

Separating nature from nurture is notoriously difficult, and in a community which endlessly holds P=NP to be an open question, it is absolutely laughable to assume that these biological differences map one to one onto the observed behavioural differences, when there is such a huge and obvious confounding factor looming over everything.

We cannot all sit around waiting for six sigmas out of CERN before we can say we've found the higgs, and then just jump merrily onto simplistic biological arguments which happen to conveniently favour our social/political/economic hegemony.

JohnsonB3• 15 years ago

>Obviously there are easily observed physiological differences in brain structure and in the endocrine system etc, however it is a massive leap to go from that to asserting that observed differences in behaviour are down to this rather than down to societal factors.

It's actually no leap at all. Evolution put those differences in brain structure for a reason. It certainly isn't random, but due to some evolutionary benefit, and given that these differences are in the brain, it actually necessitates that there will be differences in behavior resulting purely from these physiological differences. It doesn't say what those differences are, but that there will be some, and then good science would tell us to learn what specifically those are.

In addition, in terms of evolution, you would expect there to be reliable, biologically caused behavioral differences between men and women due to the importance of specialization. Evolutionary, you don't have hundreds of thousands of years of men and women specializing in certain tasks without there being some built-in, biologically caused preferences in terms of what interests guide each gender.

JonnieCache10• 15 years ago

Oh I agree that behavioural differences are to some extent caused by biology, and that biology has been determined by evolution. That is obvious, for the reasons you state.

What I am attacking is the idea that we can be at all certain about which behaviours are biologically influenced and which are socially constructed, or about the extent to which each factor is influential.

Both factors self-evidently interact in highly complex ways to produce the behavior we observe. Unfortunately it is almost impossible to isolate either one of them, largely due to ethical problems with the experiments that would be necessary.

The only thing that we can be certain of IMO is the fact that all behaviour is inextricably influenced by both nature and nurture.

acdha3• 15 years ago

In other words, you missed the point entirely: this is more continued evidence-free speculation, complete with hand-wave theorization that there has been a gender-based task division matching the dominant Western religious-driven socialization for hundreds of thousands of years when we have no data for more than a small percentage of that period and considerable evidence that the proposed specialization wasn't globally true even during that small period of time where we do have data.

It's highly likely that there are measurable differences in the capabilities between male and female brains but neuroscience is very far from being able to explain anything high-level enough to start speculating about the complex skills relevant to these discussions: say, hypothetically, that we found evidence suggesting male brains tend to be 10% faster at detecting the path of a fast moving object or recognizing orientation of geometric shapes - does that tell you anything about someone's ability to write a research paper or debug a program?

The other major confound is that many people rely on MRI data to support claimed differences and even assuming that the technology is precise enough and the relevant brain structures well understood enough (neither of which is really true) all that will tell you is what the brain looks like now, not why: children who play the piano extensively will have different brain structure but it's from years of practice causing hypertrophy, not because there's a pianist gene pre-ordaining that they would be good performers.

Finally, "Evolution put those differences in brain structure for a reason" demonstrates a fundamental misunderstanding of the mechanism: there are many, many examples of things which exist by accident (e.g. the crazy design of our eyes) or because they're connected to something which is beneficial enough to compensate for the drawbacks.

drzaiusapelord2• 15 years ago

I lot of the people who refuse to accept biological origins of gender differences don't usually have much faith in evolution to begin with. Funny how both the far-right and the far-left tend to agree on things, especially skepticism of science (or at least its casual dismissal) that counters their zealous views.

jcromartie3• 15 years ago

I feel like there has to be some kind of biological root (even if it's indirect, like if it comes out of social pressures which are based in sexual dimorphism) when nearly every culture in the world seems to have pretty much the same sort of normative ideas about men and women.

rmc6• 15 years ago

when nearly every culture in the world seems to have pretty much the same sort of normative ideas about men and women.

You're saying Saudi Arabia is like USA now? Have you even watched the TV show Mad Men? 1960s USA was different from 2000s USA.

ap222133• 15 years ago

Do you have proof of this? Or can refer to evidence?

You seem pretty confident in your claim. But, yet it goes against most of what that my freshman and sophomore anthropology professors taught me.

starwed2• 15 years ago

That's a little like saying there must be a thunder god, because nearly every culture has the same idea.

Thor Lives!

crazygringo• 15 years ago

I really have to agree with you. I've lived in China, spent weeks together with pastoral tribesmen in Kenya, lived in Paris, and spent years in Brazil, as well as being from the US.

The more I travel, the more I see how fantastically different cultures can be, but I also see the common thread which tells me what people are really like. The fact is, men tend to think in certain ways, women in another, and then homosexual men too. Of course there's lots of variation within individuals, but I'm talking about the whole.

There isn't any culture in the world where men aren't respected more because they are better providers, or any culture where women aren't respected more because they are prettier. That's just the way it is.

I've seen so much cultural variation that is seems like the kinds of things which can change, do change across cultures. The ways in which men and women express their preferences are almost infinitely varied. But I see the same basic, yet different, male and female instincts in every country I've ever lived in.

rdtsc2• 15 years ago

To convince yourself of the opposite of one fact you are suggesting -- that endocrine system doesn't play a major role in behavior, try administering yourself testosterone shots (ok don't actually do it (!) this is just for the argument's sake). You'll notice how you'll start feeling more agressive. You might start behaving more aggressively. If you stop after a while you might look back and even say something like "wow, I can't believe that was me acting that way".

Now imagine that the change is permanent (you don't stop taking those shots). Pretty sure you'd end up making small (and not so small decisions) in your life that will, in the end, amount to a very different situation than if you didn't start taking extra testosterone.

antihero5• 15 years ago

Who's to say that you are acting aggressively simply because of having more testosterone. Perhaps it's having more testosterone in relation to what you're used to?

Sure, testosterone is a factor, and it may have contributed to the trend of men to be more aggressive than women, however, women have demonstrated that they can be just as aggressive if not more aggressive with far less testosterone than men.

To say we should give up and let our biology dictate who we are despite having plenty of examples to the contrary is rather defeatist.

JulianMorrison• 15 years ago

From Wikipedia:

"In adulthood, it is clear that testosterone is not related to any consistent methods of measuring aggression on personality scales, but several studies of the concentration of blood testosterone of convicted male criminals who committed violent crimes compared to males without a criminal record or who committed non-aggressive crimes revealed in most cases that men who were judged aggressive/dominant had higher blood concentrations of testosterone than controls. However, a correlation between testosterone levels and aggression does not prove a causal role for testosterone. Studies of testosterone levels of male athletes before and after a competition revealed that testosterone levels rise shortly before their matches, as if in anticipation of the competition, and are dependent on the outcome of the event: testosterone levels of winners are high relative to those of losers."

People who think that testosterone causes aggression are putting the cart before the horse. Aggression (and status) causes testosterone.

adrianbye• 15 years ago

the social/behavioural problems of aspergers (autism spectrum disorder) are diagnosed in men at a 4x greater ratio than women.

antihero5• 15 years ago

Leading us to believe that Autism may have a genetic root.

But does that mean we should treat women differently from men? Fuck no.

Tichy23• 15 years ago

I think what sexual organs you have is very likely influenced by biology alone. And looks, too - different hormones affect your skin, bone development and so on. It is of course possible for men to swallow the right hormones and also grow boobs (and also for women to swallow hormones and not grow boobs, I suppose). Some chose to do so, and I have nothing against it. I question if we should make it a standard that people should freely decide if they want to grow boobs or not (I mean they can decide freely now, they are just not usually encouraged to ponder the issue much). I am not saying it would be wrong, just that it isn't obvious to me that it would be a more desirable world to live in.

Behaviors are another matter, however, genders have different realities (like the 9 months pregnancy period mothers face for bearing children) which automatically leads to behavior differences. It would be weird if it would not lead to behavioral differences.

Duff4• 15 years ago

Sure, and it's an equally massive leap to say "OMG! Little girls want to be reality TV stars instead of <insert "good" profession here>!" and assume that this is some sort of problem driven by sexism.

The folks who deal in this controversy have a vested interest to keep it controversial. Don't hold your breath for rational explanation.

bigfudge3• 15 years ago

How is your comment relevant to the OP? How does she demonstrate an interest in controversy?

Peaker• 15 years ago

http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn13596-male-monkeys-pre...

Alex39174• 15 years ago

"To all the people in this thread who seem so absolutely sure that the gender differences are strictly biological, do you fancy telling us what exactly makes you so sure?"

I don't believe gender differences are strictly biological, but I think the balance of evidence points to biology being a factor:

1) The differences in the prevalence of neurodevelopmental disorders. E.g. .1% of women are diagnoses with autism, vs .7% of men. Similarly, 5.4% of girls and 14.1% of boys age 11 - 17 have been diagnosed with ADHD. And 12.3% of boys and 7.1% of girls have been diagnosed with a learning disability.

2) Different psychoactive drugs tend to effect the sexes in different ways, suggesting that there is something in the chemical makeup of men and women that effects consciousness that is different to begin with. We can see this both qualitatively and by looking at the differences in the statistics for usage patterns.

3) The fact that certain drugs can make a person more or less empathic, or can make flowers more or less pretty (brighter colors), or whatever, shows that it's definitely possible that many of the purported differences in gender are attributable to biology.

4) Cognitive development research that can find cognitive differences between the sexes as early as a few weeks in age.

5) The fact that women tend to become more like men in their late 40s when their sex hormones are fading away. And the other way around. And how this effects people's behavior, e.g. this tends to be the age that most women start businesses.

6) The fact that sexual orientation seems to be determined be prenatal hormone exposure, combined with the fact that SSRIs and other serotonergic drugs can temporarily make people attracted to the 'wrong' gender. (E.g. make straight people gay, make gay people straight, etc.) I think it's telling that these drugs that alter our consciousness also impact/determine our sexual orientation. It strikes me that sexual orientation is probably profoundly connected with sensory perception, emotional processing, and consciousness in general.

It would presumably only take a few tiny differences in consciousness at birth to produce fairly large differences in twenty or thirty years. We tend to work at things we're already good at, and neural nets can be strengthened like any other muscle, especially if there is social encouragement pushing in one direction or the other.

loup-vaillant• 15 years ago

> 5.4% of girls and 14.1% of boys age 11 - 17 have been diagnosed with ADHD.

Wait what?! How did we manage to have a disorder that affects nearly 10% teenagers? There must be something odd with either the school system or the term "disorder" itself, because otherwise, such a flaw would likely have been filtered out of the gene pool. I wonder which it is.

(Same remark for learning "disabilities" by the way, though I'm less confident.)

JonnieCache10• 15 years ago

"neural nets can be strengthened like any other muscle, especially if there is social encouragement pushing in one direction or the other."

This is exactly what I'm talking about. Just like everything else in the world of human beings, we are seeing mutual feedback between society and genetics, which flows in both directions and is impossible to separate.

Like I said in my other comment, I am not arguing that biology isn't a factor. On the contrary, I am arguing that biology and society both play mutually reinforcing roles, the problems begin when people start trying to paint behaviour as an immutable product of predefined genetic destiny, and then using this to support political stances that promote their own status in society.

Symmetry2• 15 years ago

Rather than just arguing about this, we ought to be looking for the scientific studies on the topic, since this is certainly an area that scientists are interested in.

When we look at achievements gaps between boys and girls in math we can see that it tracks the amount of sexism in a society very neatly - so much so that it seems unlikely that there is any biological difference in math abilities in general[1].

On the other hand there is some pretty good evidence that there are personality traits that systematically differ between men and women in aggregate. Men tend to have higher concientiousness and women higher agreeablness, for instance.

On the other hand

[1] There are some spatial abilities that make up a small fraction of "math" there is some evidence that women are worse at.

1gor• 15 years ago

> our social/political/economic hegemony.

Hm, sorry, what hegemony are you talking about?

I always wonder why people who go all excited about gender issues can't accept that women are not men and do not have to be like men? Your 'hegemony' (I assume you speak the well known thesis about male-dominated society) may not actually exist, and the 5 year old's desire to look attractive may not be bad at at all.

Imagine, there are two dimentions to the world. One is manifesting itself in social power structures, money, status, smart jobs, Nobel awards etc.

The other is completely different and involves sense of belonging, security, plans about rising children and actual time to spend with children, emotional connection with friends, caring, feeling etc.

It just could be that most of women are not interested in the masculine dimension of this life. Heck, I dare say they may not even be particularly fit for the struggle/rat race due to their biology, exceptions notwithstanding. But they are powerful masters of another, parallel universe, which is always here with us, and where majority of men just not quite make it.

I think of many girls/women I've known in life who absolutely hate to spend their precious time on stupid things like going to work, making sure your last project is a success, competing, 'achieving' in the eyes of others etc. This distracts them from their sacred passion in life -- that is to rise a child, to shape the child's mind and soul and to protect him/her. And protection means having a secure, clean and comfortable house. And yes, that means having a strong competitive man next the them who would provide for all of that. Basically, that means a family.

(The idea of the family seems to have been discredited both by the idiotic religious right and no less idiotic crusading left, but a strong family has a clear evolutionary biological advantage. It ensures the partners reproduce and their children get competitive advantage while growing in a happy/secure place. On the other hand, a lone over-achiever may as well become the richest man in the cemetery).

A young girl is conditioned to think about her looks because this will help her later to chose her mate and to create her family. And yes, she will be chosen for the large part because of their biological traits (beauty). And that's not a bit shameful or reproachable.

Thankfully, beauty is not the only criteria, so chill, you gender activists and spare me the flaming. Of course not only looks matter in life, and child beauty contests are a horrible thing. But still, it is normal for the girls to try to look beautiful, just as it is normal for the boys to try to be strong.

bigfudge3• 15 years ago

>But still, it is normal for the girls to try to look beautiful, just as it is normal for the boys to try to be strong.

Except that boys are also expected to be resourceful, independent, intelligent etc... The OP rightly notes that an excessive focus on external attributes (themselves highly historical and culturally specific) are unlikely to help girls develop in an adaptive manner, and she provides evidence that our current discourses actively harm women in various ways.

overgryphon4• 15 years ago

The point of gender issues isn't to say women shouldn't care about beauty, child care, or or emotional connections. The point is that women can choose to care about the realms of life you described as "masculine"- jobs, academic accomplishments, financial independence.

The problem with gender issues reveals itself when the activities and traits you traditionally classified by gender are enforced on individuals of that gender. When a young woman's boss passes her over for promotion because she is around the age many women decide to bear children. When a young man is mocked and humiliated for doing ballet. When a woman is declared selfish because she chose her career over staying home with children.

There are women who don't like children, and have no desire to raise one. There are men who would rather stay home and cook, clean, and raise children than have a "smart job".

Treating traits as "feminine" and "masculine", which is what happens when young boys are encouraged to look at cars and young girls are told to be pretty, sends the societal message to young girls that she cannot have a smart job, academic achievements and so forth because women don't do those things.

lukeschlather3• 15 years ago

Yes, of course, these things are normal. But they are holding our society back. Now, maybe I'm misunderstanding you, but you seem to be seriously advocating that physical appearance is one of the primary traits that we as a society should be seeking to improve in women.

Even if we accept that the role of women is in the home and that the role of women is to find a suitable mate, (which I do not) I would say that is all the more reason that we need to ensure that women are highly educated and unconcerned with their looks. They're entrusted day in and day out with raising the next generation of great engineers, scientists, and entrepreneurs. Why would we entrust that task to people primarily concerned with their own looks?

I really don't understand where you're coming from when you argue that looking pretty is essential to the "sacred passion" of home-making. If it is indeed a sacred passion, the primary responsibility is that of an educator and nurturer.

stemchan• 15 years ago

>A young girl is conditioned to think about her looks

>But still, it is normal for the girls to try to look beautiful, just as it is normal for the boys to try to be strong.

Is it really "normal" when it's something you admit is conditioned of her to some extent by society. There's only so much that can be attributed to natural biological tendencies. Is it really that women are naturally not interested in the "masculine" dimensions of life or are there predetermined boxes that are masculine and predetermined boxes that are feminine in which society subtly puts people?

Women may not even realize they've been conditioned to fit into these boxes and so they're okay with it. That doesn't mean we should continue to perpetuate it. Some women may have been perfectly okay not being able to vote but that doesn't mean we continue to prevent them from voting. The point is the choice to do or do not. When you're perpetuating subtle societal gender expectations, you're preventing women the choice to venture out of the feminine box.

philwelch• 15 years ago

I think this is something of a straw man. I think it's the most reasonable position is that most differences have both biological and social causes. The controversy isn't over whether biological causes are the only cause--I don't see many people arguing that--but whether biological causes are there at all.

klenwell2• 15 years ago

I agree it's easy (and fun!) to oversimplify gender differences as a function of biology. But basic parental investment has always seemed a convincing hard limit to me.

The Bateman Principle sort of sums it up, though reading the Wikipedia page shows it's more complicated than common sense might dictate (as you should expect):

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bateman%27s_principle

It's not as clear-cut as Bateman thought and there were a lot of methodological problems with his experiments apparently. Nevertheless, different strategies for different sexes.

I conclude that some amount (how much?) of what we identify as gender differences flow out of these different strategies that are rooted in sexual reproduction, which requires a fundamental dichotomy of types. Still, I'm all for individuals cutting against the grain.

ap222133• 15 years ago

I think it's ironic that in a forum called 'hacker news' I can view perspectives on this topic that are convinced by 'hard limits' on Human ability by extrapolating theories of general animal biology. As if the whole realm of Human invention and innovation should be discarded, because we weren't supposed to go beyond our original biological limits.

Luckily, Humans have invented physical and cultural hacks to deal with the biological costs of child-rearing. Many types of family structures, economic structures, languages, social establishments, and physical creations have been invented to help us reproduce. In fact, Humans couldn't even exist as they do today, with their big heads, if it weren't for those original hackers.

As Humans go, where there's a will there's a way. And, that generally seems to be the implied rule on this forum. But, for some reason, when it comes to gender, we're willing to sacrifice 50% of our population by using language that demonstrably reduces probability of success.

The point is: we should be encouraging all children to never assume that hard limits exist, especially when based on incomplete information. And, even when hard limits are reached, there is always another way around.

anamax• 15 years ago

> our social/political/economic hegemony

Our?

The fact that some men have status advantages does not imply that being male provides status advantages.

Not to put too fine a point on it, but worrying about whether Bill Gates' daughter has as as good a chance of being CEO as his son isn't all that noble a cause.

notJim2• 15 years ago

I honestly think the nature vs nurture thing is a red herring. The difference between individuals in either population are far greater than the differences between the two populations. Sure, maybe statistically women are a few ticks higher or lower on certain measures than men, but when you look at women and men at the individual level, there is going to be a very broad spectrum, and yet women will still be treated differently.

kolektiv• 15 years ago

I loved this. I couldn't agree more. I don't really have any great salient points or anecdotes to add but I would love to live in a world where more people think this way. As a thought experiment though, what would it take to change this? Could this be published advice to parents? Parenting classes, post-natal something? I don't know. Prescriptive stuff is clearly not going to be popular, but in the spirit of the article - if you had a magic wand, what would you do to spread this thinking?

wallflower• 15 years ago

I quote a HN comment from HilbertSpace in its entirety:

http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2111651

> "Way before age 5, the little girls realize that they are small versions of Mommy and NOT Daddy. They know in absolute terms that they are a GIRL and NOT a BOY.

Since their mommy was happy being a mommy, the little girls want to be like Mommy and on the 'mommy track'.

By about age 18 months, little girls are already masters at eliciting positive emotions from adults, MUCH better than boys. The girls are also MUCH better at reading emotions than boys. Facial expressions and eye contact are part of how the girls read and elicit emotions; other ways are to 'act' (they are MUCH better at acting than the boys) cute, meek, and sweet and to be pretty. Since being pretty lets them do better eliciting positive emotions, they love pretty dresses with ruffles and ribbons. So, they are in a 'virtuous circle': They act sweet, elicit positive emotions in an adult, e.g., father, grandfather, uncle, get a gift of a pretty dress, wear the dress, elicit even more positive emotions, get even more pretty dresses, white bedroom furniture, patent leather shoes, cute stuffed animals, etc.

Having to act like a boy or be treated like a boy, instead of like a girl, would be terrifying to them.

So, in their first years, such little girls, to be on the 'mommy track' want to play with dolls and not Erector sets, want to work at being pretty and not how to hot rod a car, want to learn how to bake a cake and not how to plug together a SATA RAID array.

Give such a girl a toy truck and she will know instantly that the toy is 'for boys' and will avoid it as a big threat.

Generally, from a little after birth and for nearly all their lives, human females are MUCH more emotional than human males. So, they pay a LOT of attention to emotions, both theirs and others'.

One of a human female's strongest emotions is to get security from membership in, and praise, acceptance, and approval from, groups, especially groups of females about their own age. That is, they are 'herd animals'. Gossip? It's how they make connections with others in the herd. Why do they like cell phones so much? For more gossip. Why pay so much attention to fashion? To 'fit in' with the herd.

In such a herd, in most respects the females try hard to be like the 'average' of the herd and not to stand out or look different. [An exception is when a female wants to lead her herd, e.g., go to Clicker, follow the biographies, get the one for the Astors, and look at Ms. Astor and her herd of 400.] Well, as long as human females with good parenting are on the 'mommy track', and the human race will be nearly dead otherwise, the 'average' of the herd will emphasize the 'mommy track', dolls, looking pretty, cakes, and clothes and not Erector sets, hot rodding cars, or building RAID arrays.

When it comes to a college major, any human female 18 months or older will recognize in a milli, micro, nano second that her herd believes that mathematics, physical science, engineering, and computer science are subjects for boys and NOT girls. Instead the girl subjects are English literature, French, music, acting, 'communications', sociology, psychology, nursing, maybe accounting, and K-12 education. By college the girls have been working 24 x 7 for about 16 years to fit in with the herd of girls, and their chances of leaving the herd in college to major in computer science are slim to none.

Don't expect this situation to change easily or soon: Mother Nature was there LONG before computer science, and, as we know, "It's not nice to try to fool Mother Nature.". Or, to get girls to major in computer science, "You are dealing with forces you cannot possibly understand.". Having women pursuing computer careers give girls in middle school lectures on computer careers will stick like water on a duck's back -- not a chance. Nearly all the girls will just conclude that at most such careers are for girls who are not doing well fitting into the herd of girls, are not very good socially, don't get invited to the more desirable parties, don't get the good dates, are not very pretty, and are not in line to be good as wives and mommies. By middle school, the girls have already received oceans of influences about 'female roles', and changing the directions these girls have selected and pursued so strongly for so long is hopeless..."

kamaal11• 15 years ago

From your post I get a feeling that the average girl is happy being what she is now. Then I fail to understand whats the need for posts in this thread's original link.And what is the complain all about? Looks like the girlish definition of 'dumb' is a lot more different than ours. If being good looking and beautiful is what makes them feel successful, then why isn't that goal worth chasing.

I do know when we talk of women in the military, or ones burning midnight oil in some software company chasing a tough deadline we talking of exceptions and outliers. Not all women want to be that, not all want physically stressful jobs which demand a lot of endurance. Not all want emotionally demanding jobs. Not all want to be in a place where working midnights and weekends is inevitable. Vast majority of them are just happy with current roles.

If so why should the whole majority of womenfolk change just for a few outliers?

sgns3• 15 years ago

I suspect that a) the vast majority of womenfolk simply don't exist - that some are outliers doesn't mean that the majority are alike, because give it what you like, b) social conditions are changing, for both men and women there are very contradictory expectations - so it may very well be that there is no way to be (culturally) satisfied, and thus c) the vast majority isn't happy. Add to that d), even if we are all up to making choices where we are truly existentially alone, many will for a big part of their life choose as their environment does, because choosing what you want is scary, and doing as others do gives - cold - comfort.

I think there are big changes coming up everywhere.

There are so many games one can play, which at least give a thrill, but that doesn't mean it's satisfying for life. It's like junk food. I suppose that's what much marketing does.

Society is not an intentional result - it's the unintentional result of sometimes (mostly not) intentional actions.

sgns3• 15 years ago

I think there are big changes coming up everywhere.

There are so many games one can play, which at least give a thrill, but that doesn't mean it's satisfying for life. It's like junk food. I suppose that's what much marketing does.

Society is not an intentional result - it's the unintentional result of sometimes (mostly not) intentional actions. Most of the time our bodies are on auto-pilot.

Goladus• 15 years ago

Teaching girls that their appearance is the first thing you notice tells them that looks are more important than anything.

Appearance is almost always the first thing you notice about someone. I'm not sure pretending otherwise is especially practical or will really help much in the long run.

samlevine• 15 years ago

This applies to guys as well as girls. My parents made sure that I learned that people judge me on how I look, smell, speak, etc.

Duff4• 15 years ago

Great, another whiny article about the poor, maligned girls doomed to a future of breast enhancement and cellulite cream thanks to misogny.

The article is a troll, here to elicit an emotional response that will sell a book.

Enter the strawman: "In my book, Think: Straight Talk for Women to Stay Smart in a Dumbed-Down World, I reveal that 15 to 18 per cent of under-12 girls in the United States now wear mascara, eyeliner and lipstick regularly; eating disorders are up, and self-esteem is down; and 25 per cent of young American women would rather win America's Next Top Model than the Nobel Peace Prize. Even bright, successful, university-educated women say they'd rather be hot than smart. A Miami mother recently died from cosmetic surgery, leaving behind two teenagers."

Would the hysterical premise of the article hold true if you substituted common male gripes or practices? What percentage of boys aspire to be basketball or baseball players instead of whatever profession is deemed acceptable? How many young men would rather be football heroes than academics? How many would rather win a NASCAR race than win the Nobel Prize? Did a Miami father die of a heart attack because he was playing basketball at 45 in 100 degree heat?

It's easy and convenient to beat up strawmen and find a sexist boogeyman behind every perceived problem. Just don't lose sight of the fact that when you do that, you are dumbing things down.

kamaal11• 15 years ago

This is worth thinking over.

I think a lot of boys do aspire the adrenaline rush professions. But if they don't end up being one, do they now resign from their whole lives and just go saying the social persuasions to be such, destroyed their whole lives?

There is always going to be a social persuasion for nearly everything. They way we eat, dress, talk nearly anything people can see, people can pass a comment on. And that becomes a mass opinion and taken to be the established truth later.

Somehow I find it difficult to understand why women consider themselves so special in this regard. Why do we end up comparing representation of women and men in every industry is beyond my understanding.

In the name of diversity and women's empowerment, why should we expect a guy to work late in the night, come on weekends, push hard deadlines and a girl is given all options to leave early? why is inefficiency assumed to be OK and acceptable just to accommodate them? If a girl feels need to emphasize her equality, can't it be done by performing? Why do rules have to be bent, made lot more easier?

Its like a foot ball game, where you remove away the defenders so that they can score a easily. This sort of defeats the very whole purpose of empowerment.

Empowerment is to give strength to something so that it can compete with challenges as they are, not remove away the challenges so that can be easily met.

Tichy23• 15 years ago

"why should we expect a guy to work late in the night, come on weekends, push hard deadlines and a girl is given all options to leave early?"

Well, to put it drastically: biologically men are almost worthless. They can not produce babies. Hence women can make higher demands. Men have to bid for women (to carry their children) offering as much "worth" as they can. Nobody has to bid for men, because men are easily replaceable. Especially now that physical strength is not so important for survival anymore (we have guns).

In many species the female actually eats the male after sex for a nice protein boost. That is how useful men are.

king_jester• 15 years ago

You are correct in that there are social persuasions for almost everything in a society, and that is true for sexist roles and definitions for both men and women. Feminism and anti-sexism are not about empowering women over others, but rather allowing for equality among all genders. Any person of any gender should be allowed to pursue being a primary provider if they so choose, just as any person with a child should be able to access leave, for example.

aprrrr• 15 years ago

> I think a lot of boys do aspire the adrenaline rush professions. But if they don't end up being one, do they now resign from their whole lives and just go saying the social persuasions to be such, destroyed their whole lives?

(This is very tangential to the overall discussion, but) I'd say that practicing a team sport a lot around ages 8-15 is an excellent thing for a kid to do. It's good for fitness, for thinking on your feet, for working towards a team goal, and (if you really grok the game) for learning how to outsmart an opponent in a zero-sum situation.

So, when little Billy gets cut from the school team and his NBA dreams are shattered, it still will have been worthwhile. I'd vastly prefer that my kids aspire to be pro athletes than models.

cafard• 15 years ago

This same item, but from an American publication, was posted to HN a couple of months ago. Reheated, it still does not impress.

mrpsbrk• 15 years ago

Compare with http://jcs.biologists.org/content/121/11/1771.full another post at HN at around the same time, about the importance of stupidity in science. Two very different conceptions of dumb.

I would also like to stress that it is not really about looks, only, but about being always "in character" for the woman, which is pretty and dumb, true, but would be much better described as "good marrying material".

Finally, please, anyone who cared about this, check out "Ada Lovelace Day", to happen this year a month from today. http://findingada.com/about/

Tashtego• 15 years ago

Man she's been shopping that column around for a while.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/lisa-bloom/how-to-talk-to-litt...

amalcon• 15 years ago

I mostly agree with the sentiment, but this line stuck out at me:

  25 per cent of young American women would rather win 
  America's Next Top Model than the Nobel Peace Prize.

Only 25%? That's spectacularly good compared to their male counterparts. What percent of young American men do you think would rather win the Super Bowl than the Nobel Peace Prize? It's got to be at least half.

SapphireSun• 15 years ago

How many of those women responded to the top model because the Peace Prize is a heavily politicized prize given to the most expedient person of the hour? Maybe they should have asked something like "Nobel Prize in Medicine and Physiology" (not to say that there isn't politics in science prizes, but it's a lot better than a newly minted President Obama receiving a prize and going, Um, thanks? What did I do?).

rhygar3• 15 years ago

The amount of ignorance and misogyny in here is staggering. Have any of you ever actually talked to a woman? I'll boil down the argument into one that favors women:

Men are biologically programmed to be violent. We should find it as no surprise that the vast majority of violent criminals are men. After all, it's their biology. And thus all men should be regarded as likely violent in the right circumstances. Also we should not trust men to care for small children, because they have no idea what they are doing since they lack the biological drive for child-rearing.

orangecat2• 15 years ago

The amount of ignorance and misogyny in here is staggering.

Suggesting that biological factors result in statistical differences between men and women is not misogyny. "Different" does not mean better or worse.

Men are biologically programmed to be violent. We should find it as no surprise that the vast majority of violent criminals are men.

Essentially true. "Biologically programmed" is a bit strong, but in a sexism-free utopia would you seriously expect 50% of violent criminals to be women?

Also we should not trust men to care for small children, because they have no idea what they are doing since they lack the biological drive for child-rearing.

Strawman. Nobody is saying that women should be discouraged from or can't excel in any area. It's just that if individual choices result in more male than female tech startup founders, and more female than male preschool workers, it may not be due to the all-powerful patriarchy.

rhygar3• 15 years ago

I find it amusing that you took a parody of the group-think displayed here as a serious argument.

johngalt• 15 years ago

Most of the people on here are debating the degree that gender affects life choices and goals (obviously it does to some degree). It's not misogyny to debate the differences between men and women. No one is advocating that women should be categorically denied access to certain societal roles.

If I said: "Because of X, Y, & Z it's possible that biology has had more effect on female career choices than the 'patriarchy'." Does that make me a misogynist? Could there be any answer to why genders cluster around certain careers other than the 'patriarchy'? If that's the only answer you could ever acknowledge and anything else is "ignorance and misogyny" I think you should examine that.

And your argument is exactly how men are treated, and many of those biases are institutional. Imagine if women weren't allowed to seek protection from domestic violence, and had no reproductive rights at all? That's the world every man lives in. It's a little insulting to be admonished how to properly speak to women, while men are imprisoned every day because of their gender.

rhygar3• 15 years ago

The problem is not that men are discriminated against in certain ways. I never denied that fact.

The problem is de facto oppression of women based on some idea that their biology makes them want to be stupid.

Therefore since it's their biology we should expect and indeed encourage the "normal" path of limiting life accomplishments to child-rearing?

NY_Entrepreneur• 15 years ago

Folks, this thread has a lot of confused thinking that is dangerous; we need the thinking in this thread to be more clear.

First reality check. There is an old remark about research in psychology, that all the results either (1) are solid science that, however, say next to nothing important about humans or (2) say something important about humans, however, are junk as science.

Similarly, for the main issue here, that is, for what is necessary in sex differences, for the role of nature versus nurture, etc., the results from solid science won't be very important and the very important results won't be solid science. Net, to address the issue scientifically, so far we are STUCKO. Sorry 'bout that.

Second reality check. On the issue of the OP, that is, how to treat girls, young women, and women, each person WILL necessarily take some position. That is, no one gets to decline to choose an answer. We MUST have an answer. We do not have the luxury of no answer, and, from the first reality check, the answer we take on the important parts of the issue will not be from solid science. Sorry 'bout that.

Solid science is great stuff. However, quite generally in life, we have to make decisions without solid science. Sorry 'bout that.

Third reality check. I can assure you that it is actually fairly easy to get things very wrong in treatment of females, and the consequences can be from awful down to fatal. I exaggerate not. I can use Google Earth to give you the coordinates of the tombstone. So, the issue here is SERIOUS.

There is a moral issue: Men don't want to be unfair or cruel to the females. So, here's a practical resolution: Give the girls plenty of opportunity. Give them dolls and also erector sets, white bedroom furniture and also a basketball goal, tell them they are cute, sweet, pretty, darling, adorable, and precious and also explain TCP/IP, DNS, and POP 3, encourage them in both English literature and physics, in both art history and solid geometry, have them help you make chicken salad and also put the snow tires on the car, mop the kitchen floor and also sweep out the garage.

Some people who have tried this practical resolution came to a conclusion: The little girls quickly, strongly moved toward the stereotype for cute, sweet little girls. They played with the dolls and ignored the erector set; they liked art history much more than solid geometry; they were eager enough to mop the kitchen floor but wanted nothing to do with the garage. They were much more eager to be a cooperative member of a group than to strike out on some curiosity driven, independent, creative investigation.

Important information about the girls? Yes. Solid science? No. Did I mention that quite generally in life, we have to make decisions without solid science?

But more is possible: If parents and society push and shove, keep telling the girls to 'perform' well at 'boy activities', then, girls, being eager to please and more obedient, often will. If push them to be independent, autonomous, assertive, self-sufficient, and equal and to resent dependency, passivity, membership, partnership, subservience, etc., then through, say, college, they will. My experience is that, then, too likely (granted, not always) you will find that you have created a VERY 'mixed up' young woman and a weak, sick, or dead limb on the tree and conclude that Mother Nature considered all such issues long before you did and that it's not nice to try to fool Mother Nature.

Here's an easier approach: If only from an 'asymptotic' consideration, place value on her being a strong limb in the tree. Do a really good job taking care of her until can help her find a really good husband, and then help her husband continue to take very good care of her and her children. Have her be good as a wife and mother in a secure, strong family. This thought, perhaps now with feminism really offensive, is not original with me. Instead, in the "Foreword" to

Maggie Scarf, 'Intimate Partners: Patterns in Love and Marriage', Random House, New York, ISBN 0-394-5585-X, 1987.

Dr. Carol Nadelson, past president of the American Psychiatric Association, wrote:

"Traditional marriage is about offspring, security, and caretaking."

If want her to be quite active between her ears and especially busy and productive, then emphasize to her and help her in how much there is to know about helping her children with their emotional, rational, psychological, social, artistic, physical, practical, verbal, quantitative, manual, scientific, technological, and creative problem solving development and understanding of history, business, the economy, people, groups, society, politics, etc., how far and away the most important influence on them, for their academic performance and nearly everything else, is the nurturing they get at home, and how important it is to build and have a secure, strong family and how she can play a central role there. Indeed, she might just take on doing a good job home schooling her children through, say, the International Baccalaureate program, high SAT scores, etc. Let the children get through the Beethoven piano sonatas and the Bach unaccompanied violin pieces, Rudin's 'Principles of Mathematical Analysis', Royden's 'Real Analysis', Breiman's 'Probability', and the 'Feynman Lectures on Physics' -- should keep them busy for a while!

What do you want? Lots of really healthy grandchildren or someone to sweep out the garage?

georgieporgie• 15 years ago

This is kind of weird and forced. All social interactions start in a superficial way. Kids don't show up in their own cars ("hey, is that the new Brotus Fundero?"). They don't (usually) wear t-shirts from their last trade show or vacation. They aren't toting new laptops in unique courier bags and holding exotic drinks.

You're basically stuck complementing their dress, hat, or whatever. That's how social interaction works, regardless of gender. You can move on to TV shows, books, and political affiliation later, but you need an opener.

WalterBright• 15 years ago

Parents with one kid believe it's nurture, parents with 2 or more know it's nature.

nazgulnarsil• 15 years ago

I was under the impression that female educational attainment was WAY up and continuing to increase. Oh I'm sorry, is this article only about correlations that are convenient for your premise?

dimmuborgir• 15 years ago

If beauty consciousness in girls can be said as peer pressure then geek/nerd consciousness in boys can be said as peer pressure as well. Boys who don't play videogames or watch sci-fi/action movies or listen to some complex rock/electronic music genre or those who are not gadget freaks or those who're not into science/technology/engineering in general are seen as less masculine (at least in a first world society).

I think the reason why femininity is looked down is the economic models of the last 150 years which have favored science over art, rationality over irrationality and utility over authenticity. I think the world needs a second romantic era to truly appreciate the feminine aspects of beauty/creativity/genuineness.

grammaton• 15 years ago

Ah, the comments section of just about any article on the internet, always a goldmine of inadvertent comedy. My personal favorite from this one, right at the top:

"What's wrong with wanting to be hot rather than smart? Not everyone can be intelligent, and both beauty and intelligence are natural, requiring no work."

Priceless!

Don't dumb girls down

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