
Men Happier as They Get Older, Women Sadder - dpapathanasiou
http://www.reuters.com/article/lifestyleMolt/idUSSP14904520080725?feedType=RSS&feedName=lifestyleMolt&sp=true
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dgabriel
Here's a phenomenon I've recently noticed: posts that put down women, or
demonstrate ways in which they may be inferior to men, get to the front page.
Then the armchair evolutionary biologists post comments of dubious veracity
about biological sex disparity.

I submitted a link to an article about the lack of differences between genders
in mathematics, and it generated no upmods or comments. I initially assumed it
was bad timing, or not particularly interesting to hackers. Now this
submission which is clearly _not_ hacker news has found its way to the font
page & I'm starting to wonder if my gender is simply not welcome here.

~~~
vlad
If at Harvard, the first and single assignment you submitted for peer review
in a class didn't go over well, did you walk up to the professor and
classmates and accuse them of sexism? Because that is what you're doing now.

Secondly, the writer, editor, and most-quoted person in the article are all
women. Their article contains text that says that 20 year old males have lots
of happiness to look forward to--the prime audience of this site. Therefore, I
doubt the story was voted up because of what you perceive is a negative write
up about women; more likely it was because the submission title mentioned that
men get happier as they age.

I've also seen inappropriate comments. If there is a comment you disagree
with, you should reply to them specifically.

~~~
dgabriel
I should not have mentioned my submission. I've been around for a while. I've
submitted dozens of things to reddit over the past couple of years, and only
one of them got more than 5 upvotes. I know how this stuff works, and it's
certainly not meant to be a whine about how people don't upmod my stuff.

My problem is also not with the article, which doesn't go into causes, merely
states their findings. Until I stepped in, all the comments were about how
women are probably unhappy because they stop being pretty, and men are happy
because they start being rich, and can finally have sex with younger women.
These are gross stereotypes, and should be offensive to everyone. Instead,
they're accepted as common sense.

If you want evidence, feel free to scroll around.

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vitaminj
This is the link to the actual study:
<http://www.genet.ac.uk/workpapers/GeNet2008p32.pdf>

Note that the study title is "Aspirations, Attainments and Satisfaction", not
the nebulous and broadly defined "Happiness" as reported in the article. This
is significant because the study specifically analyses self-reported survey
responses for, as the title suggests, aspirations, attainments and
satisfaction. And they are quite particular about the factors that are taken
into account in their analysis, for example: happy marriage status, "big
ticket" consumer durables, number of kids, etc

It would be hard to argue that aspiring for a 7L washing machine (and
subsequently attaining it) constitutes the same happiness as a happy marriage,
which is what this study asserts (from my cursory read of the paper, they
don't normalise or put weights on the factors).

Overall the study is dubious, sophomoric at best. I had quite a few of
criticisms of the methodology while reading through the paper. If they're not
going to be rigorous about it, they should just not bother doing these kinds
of studies, presumably only to confirm their own pre-conceived biases. The
biases are obviously mainstream too, as is evidenced by all the pop psychology
comments here.

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vaksel
of course women are sadder, most of them spend their 20s-30s getting by solely
because of their looks. Then they hit 35-40 bam, looks go down the crapper,
which means you no longer get free drinks, noone hits on you and takes you out
on dates.

Men on the other hand spend 20s/30s on their careers, they mature, start
making decent money, and then they get their pick of desperate women...but
they no longer want them, instead they want the fit tight 20 year old who is
impressed by the bimmer.

Basically its a role reversal, at 20 its the guy going after girls, and at 30
its the girls going after the guys.

~~~
dgabriel
Do most men really want a much younger woman who is only interested in his
money as a life partner? It seems like I encounter this odd perspective often
online, but in reality, I know maybe two men who have married women more than
4 years their junior. Everyone else seems quite content dating or marrying
women in their age group.

This abstract suggests that only 8% of marriages include an age gap of > 10
years: <http://www.jstor.org/pss/352258>

~~~
vaksel
I didn't say a life partner, but if you spent your 20s and 30s investing into
yourself, chances are for a hook up you'd much rather go with a 25 year old
than a 35 year old.

But even for life partner, at 35 as a guy you have complete choice in whom to
pick, as a 20 year old guy, you have to settle for the fugly chick.

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noonespecial
Men find the women they are looking for, so they are happier. Women end up
with the men that were looking for them...

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YuriNiyazov
Awesome line: "The saddest period of the average man's life -- his 20s -- is
also the period when he is most likely to be single."

This is pretty much a shot across the bow to the vast majority of News.YC's
readership.

~~~
ovi256
Note that a "shot across the bow" implies a direct affront. Clearly Reuters
Live! writers are not very familiar and _jealous_ of YC hackers.

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theoneill
Women are built to peak earlier:

<http://www.livescience.com/health/061003_women_skin.html>

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olavk
Debunking: <http://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/nll/?p=406>

