3 ms·

"Sexism" has become a dirty word. There's nothing wrong with thinking women and men are wired differently. There have been studies on chimpanzees showing that

"Sexism" has become a dirty word. There's nothing wrong with thinking women and men are wired differently. There have been studies on chimpanzees showing that female chimps choose girly toys (dolls etc), and male chimps choose male toys (weapons, trucks etc) without any outside influence. Yet people act like the human species is different. They believe people only become who they are because of indoctrination into their respective gender roles. Then when you call BS on that... you're called a sexist. Then when you say "YES I AM A SEXIST" you're called a misogynist. I don't see how treating women differently (better in many cases) leads to "hating women." As for marketing - I think women do choose products differently than men. It's because they're wired differently. They are more likely to choose products based on sentimental or perceived social value. If you look at the majority of Meyers-Briggs personality types among women, there aren't as many INTP,INTJ or other engineering types. Even if you don't agree with Meyers-Briggs... that there exists such a strong difference between the male and female population that an INTP (my type) is 4 times as likely to be a male, it should prove there are major differences. The end result of these differences is that you should buy the woman you want to marry a diamond. As an INTP I know it's illogical - but I can accept it since I believe women and men are wired differently. I feel sorry for the men on HN who believe otherwise and are going to argue against diamonds with their future wife. (good luck with that - unless she's an INTP)

mattstreet 14y ago
The end result is you should talk to your partner and find out what they want and discus it. If I had bought my wife a diamond ring it would have showed her I really didn't know her. Pull out whatever study you want that says men are wired X and women are wired Y - that study is based on samples and statistics. You'll find plenty of girls that like trucks and boys that like dolls. Treat the people around you like individuals who can have both male and female traits and their own unique personality.
xymostech 14y ago
> There's nothing wrong with thinking women and men are wired differently. And nobody is disagreeing with you. It is sexist to say "women are more influenced by marketing" when they are not. If men and women are influenced the same, then making a statement about the difference between them is being sexist. So, if someone can actually provide some data that shows whether or not women are more influenced than men, instead of everyone continuing to provide anecdotes (as you have), then we can either stop saying false things, or we can accept that different genders work differently.
- super-serial 14y ago
  I didn't make it clear in my comment - but yeah I don't think women are more susceptible to marketing than men. It's just that women value different things. The original poster values functional items such as cars, computers and cool gadgets. So he thinks that it must be marketing that tricks women into buying non-functional items. The thing is... if you value how you are perceived by others, then fashion is an extremely important investment. It does serve a purpose to women (and some socially-conscious men). There is some interesting data that shows women are buying more... just Google "percentage of purchasing decisions made by women." It's over 70% - so it wouldn't be surprising if most marketing is targeted towards women.

mattstreet 14y ago

The end result is you should talk to your partner and find out what they want and discus it. If I had bought my wife a diamond ring it would have showed her I really didn't know her. Pull out whatever study you want that says men are wired X and women are wired Y - that study is based on samples and statistics. You'll find plenty of girls that like trucks and boys that like dolls. Treat the people around you like individuals who can have both male and female traits and their own unique personality.

xymostech 14y ago

> There's nothing wrong with thinking women and men are wired differently. And nobody is disagreeing with you. It is sexist to say "women are more influenced by marketing" when they are not. If men and women are influenced the same, then making a statement about the difference between them is being sexist. So, if someone can actually provide some data that shows whether or not women are more influenced than men, instead of everyone continuing to provide anecdotes (as you have), then we can either stop saying false things, or we can accept that different genders work differently.

super-serial 14y ago
I didn't make it clear in my comment - but yeah I don't think women are more susceptible to marketing than men. It's just that women value different things. The original poster values functional items such as cars, computers and cool gadgets. So he thinks that it must be marketing that tricks women into buying non-functional items. The thing is... if you value how you are perceived by others, then fashion is an extremely important investment. It does serve a purpose to women (and some socially-conscious men). There is some interesting data that shows women are buying more... just Google "percentage of purchasing decisions made by women." It's over 70% - so it wouldn't be surprising if most marketing is targeted towards women.