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I'm a woman who was originally introduced to HN through Reddit and started reading about a year ago (this is a throw-away account that I will probably not use a

I'm a woman who was originally introduced to HN through Reddit and started reading about a year ago (this is a throw-away account that I will probably not use again.) I don’t really care about startups – I'm a physics graduate student planning on going into academia – but I do care about programming and tech. I have not yet been able to find an active online community that caters to these interests that I would describe as being "female-friendly." At HN, at least, sexist jokes are usually downvoted/discouraged because of their lack of content, which is more than I can say for Reddit. I generally enjoy HN except when the community decides to discuss gender, which it seems to do multiple times a week, even when it's only tangentially related to the article and despite it already having been beaten to death on this very site a million times over. These conversations invariably turn into, "Women: Does society screw them up or is there just something weird with their brains (on average of course, let's be PC here)? Dudes speculate." This is the most interesting topic to hackers, apparently. I guess it's good to know that HN just feels like a woman-free space because it practically is, in contrast to sites like Reddit that feel that way even with ~2/5 of the users being female.

orangecat 16y ago
These conversations invariably turn into, "Women: Does society screw them up or is there just something weird with their brains The common speculation is that there's something "weird" with men's brains, in that men go to extremes (both positive and negative) more often than women. (And you have to be something of an outlier to be on HN). That may or may not be more palatable, but there actually is some decent evidence to support it.
run4yourlives 16y ago
In our collective male defense: Even the best males have been struggling with the "How do women work?" question since the dawn of time, so you can imagine it is magnified when you introduce that topic to a group of males that disproportionately answer that question incorrectly. I'd suggest not reading too much of it as "sexism" (even though it is) and more of "the other view". For every female physics grad there is a male nurse sharing the feeling, I guarantee that. Regardless, I think it takes a unique individual to be on the minority side of the gender/field of study equation and applaud you for continuing to have the courage to satisfy your own desires.
- Aaronontheweb 16y ago
  "In our collective male defense: Even the best males have been struggling with the "How do women work?" question since the dawn of time, so you can imagine it is magnified when you introduce that topic to a group of males that disproportionately answer that question incorrectly." In the words of one of my advisors - "among one the first things that was ever painted on the wall of some damp cave during the dawn of humanity was, I'm sure, a question that amounted to 'what the hell do women want?'" It's not sexism so much as it is confusion that emerges from the fact that men and women are wired very differently, think differently, are socially coniditioned differently, and most importantly - communicate differently. Naturally a community with so many men is going have some who are prone to wonder and ask outloud.
- deleted 16y ago
  [deleted]
TheSOB88 16y ago
Odd, I'd never noticed any such discussions. Maybe the stories I read don't get those kinds of comments, but I'll be on the lookout - I don't like that kind of thing either. (I'm male)
- drewcrawford 16y ago
  I assumed the referent was to the "why aren't women in CS?" articles that crop up with some regularity. I would hesitate to necessarily call these sexist. The psychological aspect of that question might appeal to both male and female hackers, and I don't think the acknowledgment of a fact (i.e., the difference in enrolled CS students) is somehow sexist.
  - dkarl 16y ago
    She may also have been referring to the discussions about women's sexual tastes and behavior.
stcredzero 16y ago
Men: Does society screw them up, or is there just something weird with their brains? Discus! EDIT: Annoying to be on the receiving end, no?
dkarl 16y ago
I guess it doesn't need to be said that a lot of us are carrying baggage from adolescence. Even when I'm dating somebody, I easily fall into thinking that no woman will ever want me and that deep down all women are fascists who despise weakness, want to see the strong humiliate the weak, and yearn to be instruments of this brutal hierarchy of male power. My therapist likes to remind me (and I'm paraphrasing heavily here,) "Dkarl, you've grown up, and the girls have grown up, too. You're not a dumb teenage boy trying to date dumb teenage girls anymore." I encourage the women on HN to say their piece on gender issues when they come up, even when your comments don't fit into the prevailing conversation. Don't worry about where your comments fit, how they influence the conversation, or how people misunderstand them or hijack your points. Just put them out there, because I think the majority of men here are well-intentioned and pretty self-aware when it comes to our own thinking about women; we just don't know how women experience working with us and what we can do to improve that experience.
- yummyfajitas 16y ago
  I guess it doesn't need to be said that people I disagree with are of low status and their opinions should be discounted for that reason. (I realize that the third paragraph of dkarl's post has substance, just picking on the fallacious part.)
- sn 16y ago
  I doubt that most men are self-aware about their own thinking. http://web.mit.edu/fnl/women/women.html http://web.mit.edu/fnl/women/women.html
  - dkarl 16y ago
    Well, okay, you've got a point there. The only woman on my team confided in me that she wants more challenging technical work, and she hasn't talked to our boss about it because she has an image of him as being unapproachable and moody, while all the men he has worked with think he's just the most easy-going and tolerant person imaginable. (The other women do, too, but my teammate is the first woman who has reported to him. The other women are peers.) But when I say self-aware, I mean that cognitive psychology is a favorite topic here, and people here have read a lot about the importance of intuition in every kind of thinking, and how everything about a person influences our intuition about them whether we want it to or not. Height, race, sex, age, attractiveness... and even worse, that our biases in intuition are mostly beyond the reach of introspection... and of course we can't dispense with intuition in dealing with people, so we can't really be fair, we can only be skeptical of our intuition, check it against evidence whenever possible, and try to observe our biases and compensate for them. At least, I'm pretty sure that picture emerges clearly from the various links that have been posted here, or anywhere else that geeky guys hang out. I think we have the problem of understanding the nature of bias licked. Honestly, I think the biggest two problems are 1) An attitude problem stemming from personal wounds and resentment over the perceived advantages of women. Some men really are deeply angry with women because of their own personal disappointments. 2) Sheer ignorance about how women experience our behavior in the workplace. Knowing how we might be screwing up isn't sufficient to recognize when we're screwing up, as the example of my boss shows. We need outside input. The internet is a perfect place for women to share their experiences, since they can be anonymous if they like, and they don't have to talk to people they have complicating relationships with.
ahoyhere 16y ago
Don't worry, the discussion about women is because people (aka men) are having a hard time getting laid, keeping a woman, dealing with the woman they have or the feelings they have about her -- or, on the other hand, understanding the appeal of women to start with. In my experience, those men prefer to throw up their hands and act as if women are mystical instead of totally explicable (like all human beings are, if you look closely enough). That way they don't have to admit they're too lazy/incapable of understanding anyone who has a different viewpoint and priorities ;) The "I'm ultra logical and uber rational" posture is part and parcel of it.
- yummyfajitas 16y ago
  My "counterargument": women who complain about sexism in technology are just fatties and uglies who wish they could find a real man instead of getting pump and dumped by the occasional desperate loser. We can try to lower the status of people we disagree with, or we could actually have a rational discussion which might teach us something. (Oh, very clever! You've preemptively applied the "loser" label to people who aspire to rationality. I guess I lose the status competition.)
  - ahoyhere 16y ago
    Way to keep it classy and prove me wrong. Very rational and measured of you. It served your purposes exactly. Are you one of the people who engage in conversations around "Women: Does society screw them up or is there just something weird with their brains (on average of course, let's be PC here)? Dudes speculate." ?
    - what 16y ago
      Would it have been more acceptable if he had said "women who complain about sexism in technology are just having a hard time getting laid or keeping a man"?
    - deleted 16y ago
      [deleted]
- 16y ago
neutronicus 16y ago
Could you elaborate more on what you feel is "female-friendly?" Just something as simple as more females? I'm interested.
- frossie 16y ago
  Could you elaborate more on what you feel is "female-friendly?" I thought the commenter went on to explain herself on that point (by discussing downvoting of sexist comments). One could define female-unfriendly as a place where the conversation takes place as if no females are present (or could possibly be present). Think male-locker-room. But: There are many guys who detest that kind of thing also, and judging from the downvoting of crap comments that goes on in HN, they are making their voices heard. It's worth noting that I know more men who self-identify as feminist than women.
  - neutronicus 16y ago
    It's not like she was holding HN up as a paragon of "female-friendliness." I wanted a "perfect-world" perspective, as opposed to "why HN is better than Reddit, while still not being all that great." It seems she's moved on though, alas, as her perspective no doubt would have made interesting reading. As far as your other points go, I've been in my shares of locker rooms and I certainly don't detest locker-room banter, nor do I self-identify as a feminist, but to each his or her own I suppose.
- ahoyhere 16y ago
  Calling real people "females" is a good counter-example.
  - neutronicus 16y ago
    Well, she started it...
- hbd 16y ago
  These discussions on HN tend to spiral to the point where I don't really want to be a part of them. But I guess talking about something is always better than the alternative, no matter how uninformed or flawed the discussion is. I think the "issues" category on the geek feminism wiki does a good job of summarizing the "female-unfriendly" things[1]. Objectification and a "sexualized environment"[2] is what the poster refers to can be common on other sites. Sexism[3] and essentialism[4] is something that generally takes the form of attitudes or opinions, and therefor is less obvious. I see this here on HN in various forms e.g. this comment[5] saying "women are less likely than men to engage in deeply focused solitary activities". "Othering"[6] is something you can see even on this page. [1] http://geekfeminism.wikia.com/wiki/Category:Issues http://geekfeminism.wikia.com/wiki/Category:Issues [2] http://geekfeminism.wikia.com/wiki/Sexualized_environment http://geekfeminism.wikia.com/wiki/Sexualized_environment [3] http://geekfeminism.wikia.com/wiki/Sexism http://geekfeminism.wikia.com/wiki/Sexism - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sexism http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sexism [4] http://geekfeminism.wikia.com/wiki/Essentialism http://geekfeminism.wikia.com/wiki/Essentialism - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Essentialism http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Essentialism [5] http://geekfeminism.wikia.com/wiki/Othering http://geekfeminism.wikia.com/wiki/Othering & http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Other#The_Other_in_gender_studies http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Other#The_Other_in_gender_studi... [6] http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1550429 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1550429
cynicalkane 16y ago
People are very strange in general, but on a site where most people are men, questions about the ways women behave that seem strange to men are going to get discussion. Of course this is an interesting topic to hackers. Hackers are mostly men and typically (big generalization) tend to approach interpersonal relations in a relatively analytical mindset. Understanding half of all humanity (on average of course, let's be PC here) is important, especially given our innate drive toward behavior conducive to reproduction. Actually, it would be nice if a member of the opposite sex who understood this mindset could help us out from time to time, but I'd imagine this must be a tiresome exercise, something like how tiresome it is to explain to businesspeople how programmers work.
- ahoyhere 16y ago
  If truly understanding women was the goal, there are a whole bunch of books that explain a whole lot... but as far as I can tell, nobody here reads them, they prefer to rely on opinions and anecdotes. Which, as any uber-rational mind will tell you, is not the same as data.
trashacct 16y ago
Please don't read that much into sexism. I'm a fellow geek who follows a bit different paradigm in all that I do. And a basic fact before anything else: Women and men ARE different. There, I said it; the pink elephant in current American society. Now, I've met men and women who are all over the place. Some are in sciences, others in humanities, others have their own business. And alongside that, I'm a dom. I have a submissive, and live with 3 other people. Both us guys are dating her, and the other guy is dating the other gal in the house. Is it "different" than most relationships? Yes, but we work. In our relationship, some would see what I do as abuse. Ive put bruises on her the size of an apple, bound her for hours, cut her with knives, chocked her until she passed out, and other acts. She trusts me completely in that I could do anything. Yet, if she asked me for something, I would move the Earth to do so. It would be just as unfair to make comments like "Why arent women in the sciences? how did we screw them up?" jut as it would be "Men are smarter in the sciences than women". When you have a culture say that you are supposed to do better in X instead of Y, of course there's bias. And go figure, Im more of a supporter of womens' rights than most women are just for the fact I am a dom.
jey 16y ago
> "Women: Does society screw them up or is there just something weird with their brains (on average of course, let's be PC here)?" Actually, generally it's men who are the weird ones. Males have higher variance on pretty much all measures. This means that e.g. there are more mentally retarded males than females and more genius males than females. Dismissing potential biological influences out-of-hand is the same as dismissing empiricism altogether.
russell 16y ago
GENTLEMEN: we are the ones with the weird brains. Testosterone, even in the womb, rewires us for dominance, hierarchy, focus (obsession), spacial acuity, etc., so we dominate in executives, generals, Nobel prize winners, and hackers. On the other end of the spectrum we pretty much own the social failure space: homelessness, severe mental illness, prison occupancy, murder, drug dealing, financial malfeasance, war, corruption, and on and on. Take a look at "The Red Queen"; it's a good read.
- ahoyhere 16y ago
  And, if you find this line interesting, read this excellent speech, "Is there anything good about men?" (of course, the answer is definitely yes.) http://www.psy.fsu.edu/~baumeistertice/goodaboutmen.htm http://www.psy.fsu.edu/~baumeistertice/goodaboutmen.htm
  - neutronicus 16y ago
    Thanks for that; great read.
  - russell 16y ago
    Excellent paper. The real evolutionary feedback loop in play here is sexual selection, not natural selection. Women evolved men and men evolved women. Women select for status, because that provides for better children and better care for their children. That means the chief has more wives because he has more status and resources. Half the men die because they are feeble or in adventures. Men select for fertility, hence beauty and youth. I suppose all this worked pretty well in a tribal society, but we now have a serious imbalance as a civilization. As I said above, men in jails and unchecked aggression and greed in our leaders. It is now up to the women to do a little directed social evolution to get us a more equitable civilization. I think we men have done quite well in evolving out women, so I have great faith if the future of civilization.
- dkarl 16y ago
  Our obsession with aggregate differences between the sexes is pointless and probably counterproductive since we spend our days dealing with individuals, not aggregates.

orangecat 16y ago

These conversations invariably turn into, "Women: Does society screw them up or is there just something weird with their brains The common speculation is that there's something "weird" with men's brains, in that men go to extremes (both positive and negative) more often than women. (And you have to be something of an outlier to be on HN). That may or may not be more palatable, but there actually is some decent evidence to support it.

run4yourlives 16y ago

In our collective male defense: Even the best males have been struggling with the "How do women work?" question since the dawn of time, so you can imagine it is magnified when you introduce that topic to a group of males that disproportionately answer that question incorrectly. I'd suggest not reading too much of it as "sexism" (even though it is) and more of "the other view". For every female physics grad there is a male nurse sharing the feeling, I guarantee that. Regardless, I think it takes a unique individual to be on the minority side of the gender/field of study equation and applaud you for continuing to have the courage to satisfy your own desires.

Aaronontheweb 16y ago
"In our collective male defense: Even the best males have been struggling with the "How do women work?" question since the dawn of time, so you can imagine it is magnified when you introduce that topic to a group of males that disproportionately answer that question incorrectly." In the words of one of my advisors - "among one the first things that was ever painted on the wall of some damp cave during the dawn of humanity was, I'm sure, a question that amounted to 'what the hell do women want?'" It's not sexism so much as it is confusion that emerges from the fact that men and women are wired very differently, think differently, are socially coniditioned differently, and most importantly - communicate differently. Naturally a community with so many men is going have some who are prone to wonder and ask outloud.
deleted 16y ago
[deleted]

TheSOB88 16y ago

Odd, I'd never noticed any such discussions. Maybe the stories I read don't get those kinds of comments, but I'll be on the lookout - I don't like that kind of thing either. (I'm male)

drewcrawford 16y ago
I assumed the referent was to the "why aren't women in CS?" articles that crop up with some regularity. I would hesitate to necessarily call these sexist. The psychological aspect of that question might appeal to both male and female hackers, and I don't think the acknowledgment of a fact (i.e., the difference in enrolled CS students) is somehow sexist.
- dkarl 16y ago
  She may also have been referring to the discussions about women's sexual tastes and behavior.

stcredzero 16y ago

Men: Does society screw them up, or is there just something weird with their brains? Discus! EDIT: Annoying to be on the receiving end, no?

dkarl 16y ago

I guess it doesn't need to be said that a lot of us are carrying baggage from adolescence. Even when I'm dating somebody, I easily fall into thinking that no woman will ever want me and that deep down all women are fascists who despise weakness, want to see the strong humiliate the weak, and yearn to be instruments of this brutal hierarchy of male power. My therapist likes to remind me (and I'm paraphrasing heavily here,) "Dkarl, you've grown up, and the girls have grown up, too. You're not a dumb teenage boy trying to date dumb teenage girls anymore." I encourage the women on HN to say their piece on gender issues when they come up, even when your comments don't fit into the prevailing conversation. Don't worry about where your comments fit, how they influence the conversation, or how people misunderstand them or hijack your points. Just put them out there, because I think the majority of men here are well-intentioned and pretty self-aware when it comes to our own thinking about women; we just don't know how women experience working with us and what we can do to improve that experience.

yummyfajitas 16y ago
I guess it doesn't need to be said that people I disagree with are of low status and their opinions should be discounted for that reason. (I realize that the third paragraph of dkarl's post has substance, just picking on the fallacious part.)
sn 16y ago
I doubt that most men are self-aware about their own thinking. http://web.mit.edu/fnl/women/women.html http://web.mit.edu/fnl/women/women.html
- dkarl 16y ago
  Well, okay, you've got a point there. The only woman on my team confided in me that she wants more challenging technical work, and she hasn't talked to our boss about it because she has an image of him as being unapproachable and moody, while all the men he has worked with think he's just the most easy-going and tolerant person imaginable. (The other women do, too, but my teammate is the first woman who has reported to him. The other women are peers.) But when I say self-aware, I mean that cognitive psychology is a favorite topic here, and people here have read a lot about the importance of intuition in every kind of thinking, and how everything about a person influences our intuition about them whether we want it to or not. Height, race, sex, age, attractiveness... and even worse, that our biases in intuition are mostly beyond the reach of introspection... and of course we can't dispense with intuition in dealing with people, so we can't really be fair, we can only be skeptical of our intuition, check it against evidence whenever possible, and try to observe our biases and compensate for them. At least, I'm pretty sure that picture emerges clearly from the various links that have been posted here, or anywhere else that geeky guys hang out. I think we have the problem of understanding the nature of bias licked. Honestly, I think the biggest two problems are 1) An attitude problem stemming from personal wounds and resentment over the perceived advantages of women. Some men really are deeply angry with women because of their own personal disappointments. 2) Sheer ignorance about how women experience our behavior in the workplace. Knowing how we might be screwing up isn't sufficient to recognize when we're screwing up, as the example of my boss shows. We need outside input. The internet is a perfect place for women to share their experiences, since they can be anonymous if they like, and they don't have to talk to people they have complicating relationships with.

ahoyhere 16y ago

Don't worry, the discussion about women is because people (aka men) are having a hard time getting laid, keeping a woman, dealing with the woman they have or the feelings they have about her -- or, on the other hand, understanding the appeal of women to start with. In my experience, those men prefer to throw up their hands and act as if women are mystical instead of totally explicable (like all human beings are, if you look closely enough). That way they don't have to admit they're too lazy/incapable of understanding anyone who has a different viewpoint and priorities ;) The "I'm ultra logical and uber rational" posture is part and parcel of it.

yummyfajitas 16y ago
My "counterargument": women who complain about sexism in technology are just fatties and uglies who wish they could find a real man instead of getting pump and dumped by the occasional desperate loser. We can try to lower the status of people we disagree with, or we could actually have a rational discussion which might teach us something. (Oh, very clever! You've preemptively applied the "loser" label to people who aspire to rationality. I guess I lose the status competition.)
- ahoyhere 16y ago
  Way to keep it classy and prove me wrong. Very rational and measured of you. It served your purposes exactly. Are you one of the people who engage in conversations around "Women: Does society screw them up or is there just something weird with their brains (on average of course, let's be PC here)? Dudes speculate." ?
  - what 16y ago
    Would it have been more acceptable if he had said "women who complain about sexism in technology are just having a hard time getting laid or keeping a man"?
  - deleted 16y ago
    [deleted]
16y ago

neutronicus 16y ago

Could you elaborate more on what you feel is "female-friendly?" Just something as simple as more females? I'm interested.

frossie 16y ago
Could you elaborate more on what you feel is "female-friendly?" I thought the commenter went on to explain herself on that point (by discussing downvoting of sexist comments). One could define female-unfriendly as a place where the conversation takes place as if no females are present (or could possibly be present). Think male-locker-room. But: There are many guys who detest that kind of thing also, and judging from the downvoting of crap comments that goes on in HN, they are making their voices heard. It's worth noting that I know more men who self-identify as feminist than women.
- neutronicus 16y ago
  It's not like she was holding HN up as a paragon of "female-friendliness." I wanted a "perfect-world" perspective, as opposed to "why HN is better than Reddit, while still not being all that great." It seems she's moved on though, alas, as her perspective no doubt would have made interesting reading. As far as your other points go, I've been in my shares of locker rooms and I certainly don't detest locker-room banter, nor do I self-identify as a feminist, but to each his or her own I suppose.
ahoyhere 16y ago
Calling real people "females" is a good counter-example.
- neutronicus 16y ago
  Well, she started it...
hbd 16y ago
These discussions on HN tend to spiral to the point where I don't really want to be a part of them. But I guess talking about something is always better than the alternative, no matter how uninformed or flawed the discussion is. I think the "issues" category on the geek feminism wiki does a good job of summarizing the "female-unfriendly" things[1]. Objectification and a "sexualized environment"[2] is what the poster refers to can be common on other sites. Sexism[3] and essentialism[4] is something that generally takes the form of attitudes or opinions, and therefor is less obvious. I see this here on HN in various forms e.g. this comment[5] saying "women are less likely than men to engage in deeply focused solitary activities". "Othering"[6] is something you can see even on this page. [1] http://geekfeminism.wikia.com/wiki/Category:Issues http://geekfeminism.wikia.com/wiki/Category:Issues [2] http://geekfeminism.wikia.com/wiki/Sexualized_environment http://geekfeminism.wikia.com/wiki/Sexualized_environment [3] http://geekfeminism.wikia.com/wiki/Sexism http://geekfeminism.wikia.com/wiki/Sexism - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sexism http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sexism [4] http://geekfeminism.wikia.com/wiki/Essentialism http://geekfeminism.wikia.com/wiki/Essentialism - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Essentialism http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Essentialism [5] http://geekfeminism.wikia.com/wiki/Othering http://geekfeminism.wikia.com/wiki/Othering & http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Other#The_Other_in_gender_studies http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Other#The_Other_in_gender_studi... [6] http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1550429 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1550429

cynicalkane 16y ago

People are very strange in general, but on a site where most people are men, questions about the ways women behave that seem strange to men are going to get discussion. Of course this is an interesting topic to hackers. Hackers are mostly men and typically (big generalization) tend to approach interpersonal relations in a relatively analytical mindset. Understanding half of all humanity (on average of course, let's be PC here) is important, especially given our innate drive toward behavior conducive to reproduction. Actually, it would be nice if a member of the opposite sex who understood this mindset could help us out from time to time, but I'd imagine this must be a tiresome exercise, something like how tiresome it is to explain to businesspeople how programmers work.

ahoyhere 16y ago
If truly understanding women was the goal, there are a whole bunch of books that explain a whole lot... but as far as I can tell, nobody here reads them, they prefer to rely on opinions and anecdotes. Which, as any uber-rational mind will tell you, is not the same as data.

trashacct 16y ago

Please don't read that much into sexism. I'm a fellow geek who follows a bit different paradigm in all that I do. And a basic fact before anything else: Women and men ARE different. There, I said it; the pink elephant in current American society. Now, I've met men and women who are all over the place. Some are in sciences, others in humanities, others have their own business. And alongside that, I'm a dom. I have a submissive, and live with 3 other people. Both us guys are dating her, and the other guy is dating the other gal in the house. Is it "different" than most relationships? Yes, but we work. In our relationship, some would see what I do as abuse. Ive put bruises on her the size of an apple, bound her for hours, cut her with knives, chocked her until she passed out, and other acts. She trusts me completely in that I could do anything. Yet, if she asked me for something, I would move the Earth to do so. It would be just as unfair to make comments like "Why arent women in the sciences? how did we screw them up?" jut as it would be "Men are smarter in the sciences than women". When you have a culture say that you are supposed to do better in X instead of Y, of course there's bias. And go figure, Im more of a supporter of womens' rights than most women are just for the fact I am a dom.

jey 16y ago

> "Women: Does society screw them up or is there just something weird with their brains (on average of course, let's be PC here)?" Actually, generally it's men who are the weird ones. Males have higher variance on pretty much all measures. This means that e.g. there are more mentally retarded males than females and more genius males than females. Dismissing potential biological influences out-of-hand is the same as dismissing empiricism altogether.

russell 16y ago

GENTLEMEN: we are the ones with the weird brains. Testosterone, even in the womb, rewires us for dominance, hierarchy, focus (obsession), spacial acuity, etc., so we dominate in executives, generals, Nobel prize winners, and hackers. On the other end of the spectrum we pretty much own the social failure space: homelessness, severe mental illness, prison occupancy, murder, drug dealing, financial malfeasance, war, corruption, and on and on. Take a look at "The Red Queen"; it's a good read.

ahoyhere 16y ago
And, if you find this line interesting, read this excellent speech, "Is there anything good about men?" (of course, the answer is definitely yes.) http://www.psy.fsu.edu/~baumeistertice/goodaboutmen.htm http://www.psy.fsu.edu/~baumeistertice/goodaboutmen.htm
- neutronicus 16y ago
  Thanks for that; great read.
- russell 16y ago
  Excellent paper. The real evolutionary feedback loop in play here is sexual selection, not natural selection. Women evolved men and men evolved women. Women select for status, because that provides for better children and better care for their children. That means the chief has more wives because he has more status and resources. Half the men die because they are feeble or in adventures. Men select for fertility, hence beauty and youth. I suppose all this worked pretty well in a tribal society, but we now have a serious imbalance as a civilization. As I said above, men in jails and unchecked aggression and greed in our leaders. It is now up to the women to do a little directed social evolution to get us a more equitable civilization. I think we men have done quite well in evolving out women, so I have great faith if the future of civilization.
dkarl 16y ago
Our obsession with aggregate differences between the sexes is pointless and probably counterproductive since we spend our days dealing with individuals, not aggregates.