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I think it's pretty likely that there are male and female personality differences that are biological and not just cultural. Yet before we were even able to tak

I think it's pretty likely that there are male and female personality differences that are biological and not just cultural. Yet before we were even able to take these measurements any suspected male/female brain differences have pretty universally been used to screw over women. Some examples at the top of my head in the US: women were denied access to most universities, not allowed to become doctors, scientists, lawyers. Even in 1988, until the Women's Business Ownership Act was passed, if a woman wanted to get a business bank loan, she couldn’t do it without the signature of a male relative IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. A witness in a federal legislation hearing at the time had to have her 17-year-old son cosign for a loan since she didn’t have a living husband, father or brother. Again, in the UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. The supposed free-market capitalist center of the world. Apparently women couldn't be trusted with loans, because what if their "woman brains" did something stupid with the money? This sounds like Saudia Arabian levels of male guardianship bullshit. Except it's the United States. In modern times. It wasn't a long time ago. 1988 is a time when many millenials were already alive. So even though I'm pretty sure there are biological differences between male and female brains, I am even more sure that even the slightest hint of it will be used to screw people over. Why? Because it has happened over and over again to justify exerting control over people. Therefore, I am not surprised some people just refuse to acknowledge it and I can't really blame them. Besides, these differences are on average and people screw people over for "well X group on average is like ____" reasoning all the time. So I find this research mildly interesting from the scientific perspective, and a huge liability from the societal perspective.

systemvoltage 5y ago
This doesn't make any sense. The oppression of women wasn't because someone went "Oh, I read a study and I have the proof now!". Oppression of women has nothing to do with scientific endeavor to study differences in gender. Science has no agenda besides understanding nature. Women's oppression has been going on for many centuries in every single culture independently before we even had scientific literature in this area.
- etrabroline 5y ago
  While an understanding of male/female difference has only of late become "scientific", the bases for discrimination between the two had roots in these kinds of observations, and feminists will be the first to point this out.
  - google234123 5y ago
    So is the solution to close our eyes and prevent these kinds of observations?
    - etrabroline 5y ago
      Yes. That is the egalitarian/feminist position. There are no upsides to knowing the truth, so we should ignore it and attack anyone who starts looking at the data.
- bitwize 5y ago
  Science is carried out by humans, and humans act on ulterior agendas all the time. There's a whole class of facts called "hate facts", which are putative facts you would do well to doubt, and even if they were true pretend they are false anyway, because of the ammo they would give to people who want to oppress certain groups if they were true or widely accepted as true. One particularly volatile example is the supposed race-IQ correlations. Even if they were true we would be socially obligated to deny them, because letting that sort of thing become public knowledge would encourage the wrong sorts of people and groups. I suspect the same is true of sex differences in cognition, personality, or interest because it would enable misogynists to enact anti-woman policies in the name of "well, women just aren't interested in/don't have the personality required for that anyway".
  - systemvoltage 5y ago
    A minuscule number of people read any of these studies or literature. To stop progress of scientific understanding because of some far fetched consequence isn’t a worthwhile trade off. My crazy sexist Uncle doesn’t conduct a deep thorough review of scientific literature before spewing his deep contempt for women. If I were to guess the number of people reading gender studies to bolster their biases, it would be in vanishingly small.
retrac 5y ago
Looking at it scientifically has done the opposite, and largely dispelled the illusion of any major difference, surely? Any net difference on some cognitive or personality index is swamped with variation within each either sex. If we're going to deny women from taking loans for being too X, or deny men from owning guns for being too Y, then we should probably also ban about 80% of the other sex too -- they, individually, would be over the median line. This is human height distribution by sex: https://ourworldindata.org/uploads/2019/06/distribution-1-775x550.png https://ourworldindata.org/uploads/2019/06/distribution-1-77... One of the most dramatic sexual divergences in humans. With personality it seems to follow that basic pattern. Even with the men usually having a wider variation, as noted elsewhere in this thread. Except with psych indexes and metrics, it's usually even more overlapped. So overlapped it's often hard to tell if it's a statistical illusion! In many cases there seems to be no difference at all. So, really it's more like such research points more to that we're close to indistinguishable. Sex alone would not give you a great deal of information about someone's mind or personality or mental abilities. This is the very opposite of a basis to argue for unequal treatment for half of the population. Will some still try to justify an absurd and unjustifiable thing on the basis of such data? Probably. But they could just invent complete pseudoscience too. Misuse by morally deranged actors has never been a too compelling reason to not do social research, surely?
- MyHypatia 5y ago
  To be clear, I support that this type of research is conducted. I even said "I find it mildly interesting from the scientific perspective." I am pointing out that the people who are uncomfortable with this research, are not just crazy ideologues, but actually have plenty of reason to be concerned about the consequences. If politicians use these results to justify implementing policy based on averages of groups, then these results become the basis of an unpleasant human experiment that I am not excited to be a part of. My position is: Yes, conduct the research, but be VERY aware and VERY active in mitigating its misuse.
MyHypatia 5y ago
I want to point out the irony that I'm being down voted on a startup forum for pointing out that in the US women had to have a male cosigner to take out a loan to start a business until it was outlawed in 1988. Laws like these make some people uncomfortable acknowledging male/female brain differences exist even if it's true. Why the down votes? This is factually true. You are just uncomfortable acknowledging the reality of how terrible people behave. Yet, criticism abound for those worried about the consequences to their lives if the politicians start implementing policy based on the average behavior of different groups.

systemvoltage 5y ago

This doesn't make any sense. The oppression of women wasn't because someone went "Oh, I read a study and I have the proof now!". Oppression of women has nothing to do with scientific endeavor to study differences in gender. Science has no agenda besides understanding nature. Women's oppression has been going on for many centuries in every single culture independently before we even had scientific literature in this area.

etrabroline 5y ago
While an understanding of male/female difference has only of late become "scientific", the bases for discrimination between the two had roots in these kinds of observations, and feminists will be the first to point this out.
- google234123 5y ago
  So is the solution to close our eyes and prevent these kinds of observations?
  - etrabroline 5y ago
    Yes. That is the egalitarian/feminist position. There are no upsides to knowing the truth, so we should ignore it and attack anyone who starts looking at the data.
bitwize 5y ago
Science is carried out by humans, and humans act on ulterior agendas all the time. There's a whole class of facts called "hate facts", which are putative facts you would do well to doubt, and even if they were true pretend they are false anyway, because of the ammo they would give to people who want to oppress certain groups if they were true or widely accepted as true. One particularly volatile example is the supposed race-IQ correlations. Even if they were true we would be socially obligated to deny them, because letting that sort of thing become public knowledge would encourage the wrong sorts of people and groups. I suspect the same is true of sex differences in cognition, personality, or interest because it would enable misogynists to enact anti-woman policies in the name of "well, women just aren't interested in/don't have the personality required for that anyway".
- systemvoltage 5y ago
  A minuscule number of people read any of these studies or literature. To stop progress of scientific understanding because of some far fetched consequence isn’t a worthwhile trade off. My crazy sexist Uncle doesn’t conduct a deep thorough review of scientific literature before spewing his deep contempt for women. If I were to guess the number of people reading gender studies to bolster their biases, it would be in vanishingly small.

retrac 5y ago

Looking at it scientifically has done the opposite, and largely dispelled the illusion of any major difference, surely? Any net difference on some cognitive or personality index is swamped with variation within each either sex. If we're going to deny women from taking loans for being too X, or deny men from owning guns for being too Y, then we should probably also ban about 80% of the other sex too -- they, individually, would be over the median line. This is human height distribution by sex: https://ourworldindata.org/uploads/2019/06/distribution-1-775x550.png https://ourworldindata.org/uploads/2019/06/distribution-1-77... One of the most dramatic sexual divergences in humans. With personality it seems to follow that basic pattern. Even with the men usually having a wider variation, as noted elsewhere in this thread. Except with psych indexes and metrics, it's usually even more overlapped. So overlapped it's often hard to tell if it's a statistical illusion! In many cases there seems to be no difference at all. So, really it's more like such research points more to that we're close to indistinguishable. Sex alone would not give you a great deal of information about someone's mind or personality or mental abilities. This is the very opposite of a basis to argue for unequal treatment for half of the population. Will some still try to justify an absurd and unjustifiable thing on the basis of such data? Probably. But they could just invent complete pseudoscience too. Misuse by morally deranged actors has never been a too compelling reason to not do social research, surely?

MyHypatia 5y ago
To be clear, I support that this type of research is conducted. I even said "I find it mildly interesting from the scientific perspective." I am pointing out that the people who are uncomfortable with this research, are not just crazy ideologues, but actually have plenty of reason to be concerned about the consequences. If politicians use these results to justify implementing policy based on averages of groups, then these results become the basis of an unpleasant human experiment that I am not excited to be a part of. My position is: Yes, conduct the research, but be VERY aware and VERY active in mitigating its misuse.

MyHypatia 5y ago

I want to point out the irony that I'm being down voted on a startup forum for pointing out that in the US women had to have a male cosigner to take out a loan to start a business until it was outlawed in 1988. Laws like these make some people uncomfortable acknowledging male/female brain differences exist even if it's true. Why the down votes? This is factually true. You are just uncomfortable acknowledging the reality of how terrible people behave. Yet, criticism abound for those worried about the consequences to their lives if the politicians start implementing policy based on the average behavior of different groups.