
The cognitive differences between men and women - walterclifford
https://stanmed.stanford.edu/2017spring/how-mens-and-womens-brains-are-different.html
======
bayonetz
This topic has obviously become highly socio-political. The current fashion is
that there are basically NO biological sex-type differences; that any sex-type
differences are socially imposed and generally disadvantageous to women. I
think a meta-study style article like this useful to show all the rich and
varied science on the matter and to help spark a dialogue around "what if?".
If we assume even half of the implications of the cited studies here are true,
then that is plenty of sex-type difference to recon with. The citings show as
many differences favoring women as they do men. They are just that --
differences, each with their requisite pros and cons. It just makes sense that
an intelligent evolutionary process would have lead to the sexes as being best
as partners with a division of complimentary abilities and preferences. I
can't see us making much progress on the societal equalization across sexes if
we don't embrace and harness the very real differences that exist between
them.

~~~
tunesmith
"The current fashion is that there are basically NO biological sex-type
differences" \- seriously who argues this? I asked below and only got two
examples of rebuttals, not examples of people actually arguing this.

~~~
silverlake
It said so right in the article: "Social psychologists and sociologists pooh-
poohed the notion of any fundamental cognitive differences between male and
female humans, notes Halpern"

------
mnsc
From the article.

"Men, on average, can more easily juggle items in working memory. They have
superior visuospatial skills: They’re better at visualizing what happens when
a complicated two- or three-dimensional shape is rotated in space, at
correctly determining angles from the horizontal, at tracking moving objects
and at aiming projectiles."

From this article: [http://mitadmissions.org/blogs/entry/picture-yourself-as-
a-s...](http://mitadmissions.org/blogs/entry/picture-yourself-as-a-
stereotypical-male)

"As it turns out, there is zero statistically significant gender difference in
mental rotation ability after test-takers are asked to imagine themselves as
stereotypical men for a few minutes. None. An entire standard deviation of
female underperformance is negated on this condition, just as a man’s
performance is slightly hindered if he instead imagines himself as a woman."

What gives?

~~~
DalaiObama
"Stereotype threat" isn't doing well in replication.

[https://replicationindex.wordpress.com/2017/04/07/hidden-
fig...](https://replicationindex.wordpress.com/2017/04/07/hidden-figures-
replication-failures-in-the-stereotype-threat-literature/)

Money quote:

"Research on stereotype threat and women’s performance on math tests is one
example where publication bias undermines the findings in a seminal study that
produced a large literature of studies on gender differences in math
performance. After correcting for publication bias, this literature shows very
little evidence that stereotype threat has a notable and practically
significant effect on women’s math performance (Flore & Wicherts, 2014)."

~~~
meowface
If "male visuospatial advantage" isn't being replicated when stereotype threat
is taken into account, and stereotype threat isn't being replicated when other
experimental variables are taken into account, I don't think that necessarily
proves or disproves male visuospatial advantage or that it can or can't be
explained by stereotype threat.

I think we need some meta-analyses here.

~~~
leereeves
A meta-analysis wouldn't solve the problem unless it somehow included
previously unpublished data. Publication bias has left whole fields of science
untrustable.

If an individual scientist cherry-picked interesting data the way publications
cherry-pick results to publish, it would be called fraud.

~~~
meowface
Very true. I should've said "more studies _and_ more meta-analyses need to be
conducted".

------
jostmey
I'd like to think society can _truely_ embrace diversity instead of
uniformity.

Sadly, racial and sex discrimination still exist leaving society stuck with
imperfect solutions to deep rooted problems.

~~~
exabrial
^ this ^ so much. It makes me very sad to see male masculinity being shamed
and female empathy mocked as a weakness. The important differences should be
celebrated, not viewed as a superiority contest.

~~~
closeparen
How are you going to do that in a way that isn't shitty to "feminine" men or
"masculine" women?

~~~
phaed
You can't save everyone from feeling shitty. It's a similar argument
overweight people have against ads showing fit and healthy people, they want
those ads removed cause it makes them feel shitty about themselves. What they
need to do is analyze why it makes them feel shitty, and if they don't like
what they see, rather than try to change everyone else, they should look into
changing themselves. If you accept who you are and are content with it, there
is no reason to feel shitty in the first place.

~~~
closeparen
Being a sensitive man, an ambitious/aggressive woman, etc. is not and should
not be treated like obesity. Expecting conformity to these norms causes a
great deal of real-world harm (for starters: repressed emotions creating
mental health crises in manly men, timidity leading to poor career outcomes
for feminine women), and it is right and proper that we ostracize and exclude
people who are looking to do so.

We should celebrate people displaying traits that are well-adapted to the
situation at hand, not the traits they "should" have based on some immutable
identity bit.

~~~
jules
What makes you think you can socially engineer people to appreciate sensitive
men? The root of sensitivity is not a respect producing trait for men is
because women do not find that sexually desirable on average. Properties that
make men respected are the properties that women like: men compete physically
(sports or physique), on social status, and on financial success. There is a
reason why parents traditionally toughen up boys.

The same applies with the genders reversed.

~~~
closeparen
We already _have_ done the social engineering by creating communities where
it's not socially acceptable to reinforce gender roles. Now we're talking
about protecting them from you.

~~~
jules
You can enforce political correctness but you cannot enforce respect or
attraction.

~~~
closeparen
Attraction is the _last_ thing we're trying to engineer in the workplace.

~~~
jules
This isn't just about the workplace. It is about behavior in general and where
this behavior comes from. Even feminists have admitted to me and other
feminists have written articles describing that they find the opposite of what
they advocate attractive, and if they are unable to socially engineer
themselves there is little chance with society in general. Gendered behaviour
is incentivised that way. You find reinforcement of gendered behaviour
problematic but forget the most powerful reinforcer.

~~~
closeparen
People are adaptable. You don't need to behave the same way at work as you do
in your dating life. We should not be enforcing standards of gendered behavior
in a business context because they increase attractiveness.

In fact this is a common form of sexual harassment - telling women they ought
to make themsleves more attractive to you (smile, dress a certain way, etc)
when you are strangers or colleagues.

~~~
jules
Who said anything about telling others at work to make themselves more
attractive? We're talking about people making themselves more attractive, such
as men who purposely avoid appearing sensitive, and why men do that.

You said:

> Being a sensitive man, an ambitious/aggressive woman, etc. is not and should
> not be treated like obesity.

My point is that being a sensitive man _is_ treated like obesity, and I
mentioned the most powerful driver behind men acting more stoic than they
naturally would. Note that I have not made a single normative statement in
this thread. I'll make the first one now: if you truly care about not
reinforcing gender stereotypes, you should tackle the source not the symptom.

------
callesgg
Here in Sweden if you are of the opinion that men and women are biologically
different, people will call you "racist", bigot, idiot, and so on.

It is terrifying, difference has somehow become connected to the thought that
one gender should be inferior.

Personally i don't care particularly much WHY the sexes are different, we are
different that is enough knowledge for me in my life at the moment.

I do however care about people communicating facts that are not based on
science.

~~~
mnsc
As a fellow swede I don't have the same experience. I instead see many cases
of biological differences between sexes (that exists) being over emphasized in
order to rationalize maintaining status quo.

------
epx
Men are, by far, more violent. This is a major weakness, or "defect". Why
women shouldn't have their own, peculiar, weaknesses? I think that even
psychiatric conditions like depression, borderline, ADD, etc. manifest very
differently in men and women.

~~~
Nokinside
Statistically women appear to have less deviation physically, mentally or
socially.

It could be a result of how primates have evolved. For males increasing
standard deviation in traits makes it more likely that they are among the few
top males that can mate with multiple females. For female being more robust
ensures maximum number of children.

Women have both glass ceiling and glass floor. There are far less successful
women, but there are also far less women living in the streets.

~~~
cherry_su
Some variation could be explained by the existence of a second X chromosome.
This redundancy hides variation that could otherwise be exposed by a recessive
gene on a male's sole X chromosome, without the chance of a dominant gene on
the second X chromosome to mask it.

------
stared
Food for thought:

* Trans people of Reddit, what was something you weren't expecting to be told, find out, or experience when going through your transition ([https://www.reddit.com/r/AskReddit/comments/4g1pgu/serious_t...](https://www.reddit.com/r/AskReddit/comments/4g1pgu/serious_trans_people_of_reddit_what_was_something/))

So yes, even hormones by themselves make changes, going beyond cultural
pressure and upbringing. Exposure for different chromosomes, and hormones,
though all live (including prenatal development) may have even stronger
impact.

~~~
agarden
Interesting reading. Here's a relevant snippet from that page:

"I was extremely egalitarian prior to my transition I staunchly didn't want to
think there were any neurological differences between men and women, it became
obvious over time to me begin on estrogen there were. It's just tricky to
discern the difference. It was distressing to realize that it makes a big
difference and my brain and mind were just playthings of my body."

[https://www.reddit.com/r/AskReddit/comments/4g1pgu/serious_t...](https://www.reddit.com/r/AskReddit/comments/4g1pgu/serious_trans_people_of_reddit_what_was_something/d2e6fho/)

------
twh270
The brain is a physical, biological organ just like the heart, eyes, etc. So
yes, just as there are minor physical differences between men and women in
other ways, there are minor physical differences in the brain as well. Across
a sufficiently large sample set, men will on average be slightly better at
some things, and women will on average be slightly better at other things.

For the reactionary crowd, please note I said "minor differences" and
"slightly better". There's a ton of overlap and much more similarity than
difference. Also I want to be clear to separate biological differences from
culturally trained differences. The things we do and are exposed to growing up
certainly have an effect on brain development, just as they do on the rest of
the body.

To further that last point, IMO it is almost certain that culturally assigned
gender roles have played a part in our evolutionary biology. So this is not a
discussion that can really be separated from the role of culture.

I hope that continuing research in this field helps educate people to see that
men and women are far more alike than different.

~~~
nyxtom
This ^. Indeed, men and women are different and some tasks, mental models may
be different over the average. Even traits such as the propensity for
aggression as a side effect of more testerone in the body. This certainly
doesn't mean you won't find aggressive women, but on the whole the nuances
seem quite a lot simpler when you take into account varying levels of hormones
and neuroplasticity.

I think it is worth exploring the effects of culture on gender, but I honestly
think the simpler answer is one of neuroplasticity and the brains adaptation
to selection, hormones and environmental stress. When you stop thinking in
diametrically opposing ways of being, you realize humans on the whole (men and
women) are far far more alike than we let on.

------
jungletime
Seems like the "google memo guy" just expressed many of the view points of the
youtube famous psychologist and UofT professor Jordan Peterson. I'm not sure
if its related, but Jordan's channel was shut down for a day for an
unexplained reason, fueling many conspiracy theories.

------
nyxtom
The Google memo guy would of made a lot more inroad had he referenced this
material.

Nothing in this article screams controversial to me. I also don't see a
problem with wanting to hire more women in tech. These differences outlined do
not all appear advantageous or otherwise disadvantage one gender over another
and lend better credence to being a great engineer. Anything that makes that
claim is conflating a false narrative on extremely weak grounds.

Having said that, the memo is a trigger for people on multiple extremes. The
reaction from both sides of this reminds me of forums on parenting nature vs
nurture.

~~~
throwgoog452
The Google memo author _did_ reference similar material. The fucking Gizmodo
leak stripped out all author's hyperlinks. The hyperlinks were how he cited
his sources. This fact keeps getting lost on people: the document was not only
well-written, but also well-supported!

~~~
nyxtom
I don't buy that argument. Referencing work doesn't mean you just slap a bunch
of links and call it good. Build up of context; heck even just mention Google
Project Aristole. Are you saying Gizmodo stripped links and all paragraphs
that provided reference context and explanation of said material?

Sorry, I think perhaps to me his writing style came off as amateur at best to
me. It seemed rushed, wavering, and made irrelevant arguments without proper
build up or context. It wasn't until the very end that he even decided to
state the context of mountain view to begin with. Reading it made it sound
like over generalizations and frankly just a long reddit rant.

Reading through this article linked here, nothing came off as especially
controversial to me. Seeing that the author of the memo seems to have some
professional background in the field of biology I would of expected better; at
least check for typos.

------
tunesmith
Can someone point out to me an example of someone arguing there is no
difference between men and women? I regularly see people arguing against this
viewpoint, but I am not sure I have ever seen the viewpoint itself.

~~~
mpweiher
Regarding the mind, "The Blank Slate" is actually the dominant viewpoint.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tabula_rasa](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tabula_rasa)

Deviations are not tolerated.

For more details, see Pinker (who then debunks this):
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Blank_Slate](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Blank_Slate)

------
anwar19
Here's an interesting piece by a female Associate Professor of Sociology at
Stockholm University.

[https://econjwatch.org/file_download/943/SternSept2016.pdf?m...](https://econjwatch.org/file_download/943/SternSept2016.pdf?mimetype=pdf)

The paper is titled "Undoing Insularity: A Small Study of Gender Sociology’s
Big Problem" and it's core theme is that gender sociology insulates itself
from ideas that are contrary to status quo. Do give it a read.

------
ilaksh
The problem is that rather than evaluating actual individuals who of course
vary widely, these tendencies are used as justification for pre-judgement or
inequality.

------
mrcabada
How do we now this isn't something that is being caused due to the female
being suppressed in our history? This studies are biased due to the fact that
females haven't been treated equally for centuries and this affects on how the
female see the world, affecting the real meaning of the study.

It's like taking a male that you have treated emotionally bad and you tell him
thru all his life he can't do this and that and a male where you tell him he
must be strong, he must do this and that. Boths are males and I bet you will
find the same differences between these two males and between a male and a
female.

------
JimboOmega
As a trans person, I have read that changing the hormones changes the brain
shape quite a bit towards the cross sex sizes.

It will be a very interesting experience...

------
nether
Similarly, some leftists claim that race is a social construct because there
is more genetic variation within a race than across them. Except you have
genetic tests that easily identify race: [https://www.wired.com/2007/12/ps-
dna/](https://www.wired.com/2007/12/ps-dna/) and medical studies that indicate
the race of patients studied, because it is a medically significant concept:
[http://news.softpedia.com/news/Different-Races-Are-
Genetical...](http://news.softpedia.com/news/Different-Races-Are-Genetically-
Prone-to-Different-Diseases-44056.shtml).

~~~
ZeroGravitas
Which races are you talking about?

The ones leftover from 19th century pseudoscience?

Can you point me to a science paper that shows a genetic basis for these so-
called races?

Not, notably, working back from genes to crazy theories. I could genetically
detect ginger haired people, or people with green eyes, that doesn't make
those races.

So what defines your races?

~~~
mnsc
I have deviced a test that can, with 100% accuracy, detect a dark skinned
individualist. I call it "ocular inspection" and it uses eye tools.

~~~
TheCoelacanth
Using the same tools I can with 100% accuracy detect someone with red hair
from someone with brown hair. What is your basis for separating people with
different skin colors into different races but not people with different hair
colors?

------
mempko
My response here will be unpopular but. Yes, there are cognitive difference,
but it doesn't matter. Building software is a complex social event and
requires incalculable amount of different skills sets and team effort. To use
single differences to claim men are better at software like the Google guy did
is just stupid. It's unscientific conjecture born out of likely deep seated
issues many nerds, like me and others, have with the opposite sex. In other
words programming likely has become a "safe place" for a certain group of
people and they want to protect that space. However, in doing so they end up
with a bankrupt culture which likely has a negative effect on the quality of
the very software they write.

EDIT: in reference to my "Google guy" remark. I think this fight is ultimately
about growth vs fixed mindsets. My hunch is self proclaimed "conservatives"
have a fixed mindset. Meaning they think people are born a certain way and
can't grow.

~~~
mcappleton
>Yes, there are cognitive difference, but it doesn't matter.

Do you have any evidence to back up this claim? You make a lot of assertions
that I think these guys scientific experiments refute.

~~~
gehwartzen
Not OP, but the wiki entry on cognitive differences in the sexes does a good
job listing many of them and is well cited:

[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sex_differences_in_cognition](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sex_differences_in_cognition)

~~~
mcappleton
the guy said that the differences don't matter. I was asking him to back that
assertion up.

------
mcappleton
For thousands of years men have run society and women have been homemakers. We
are biologically wired with those roles in our DNA. Today we are trying to
upset those roles, and It causes a huge amount of psychological problems.
Women are not designed to run their own lives. They are designed to follow the
significant man in Their life. Today since they are expected to be like men,
they are completely overwhelmed and are now doped up on drugs like xanax to
cope.

More freedom is not always a good thing. Studies show that with more rights
women are actually less happy today than they were 40 years ago.

------
torrent-of-ions
Here on HN you'll be banned if you're not careful too.

~~~
LyndsySimon
Do you have an example of that?

My experience on HN is that there exists a small minority of users who might
shout you down, but I've never seen or heard of a user being banned for
discussing something like this in good faith.

~~~
jshevek
I've seen it claimed, without substantiation, that anyone who argues against
the fashionable position can't possibly be doing so "in good faith" \- because
the unfashionable position itself is declared to be a bad faith position.

I've seen this repeatedly on HN.

------
danharaj
1) There are sex-differentiated characteristics of the brain.

2) Those sex-differentiated characteristics tend to be a mosaic in the brain
[1].

3) Despite being a mosaic, statistics can still differentiate sex based on
individual brain characteristics [2].

4) Therefore the current social structures that differentiate the roles men
and women play in society are biologically derived /s /s /s /s

A long time ago, it was decided that women and men had their place because god
ordained it. When that fell out of fashion (still fashionable in many places),
shallow thinkers used sed to make it seem more respectable.

Putting this into the context of the recent discussion about the role of
sex/gender in the tech industry, let's suppose that biological differences
influence a person' career choice. Let's also acknowledge that until the last
60 or so years women were basically barred from pursuing technical work in
great numbers by social obstacles. The question is, when did those social
obstacles become so negligible that only biological factors are left as
plausible reasons for gender disparities in, say, programming?

Very few people disagree with the idea that society should treat people
equally irrespective of their gender. There's just a contingent of people who
say that such social parity has already been achieved (or maybe we've gone
_too far_ ), and another contingent who say that parity has not been achieved.
If we're already in an egalitarian society, then clearly the only reason for
significant differences in the division of labor and social participation
between different genders must be of biological origin.

In other words, the contentious issue of biological differences between men
and women isn't contentious because of the biology, but because of the
assumptions that need to be made in order to correlate those differences with
the structure of society.

[1]
[http://www.pnas.org/content/112/50/15468](http://www.pnas.org/content/112/50/15468)

[2]
[http://www.pnas.org/content/113/14/E1968.short](http://www.pnas.org/content/113/14/E1968.short)

~~~
VMG
> There's just a contingent of people who say that such social parity has
> already been achieved (or maybe we've gone too far), and another contingent
> who say that parity has not been achieved.

There also is a contingent of people who say that equal treatment will not
lead to social parity.

~~~
danharaj
I used social parity as a synonym for equal treatment, as indicated by the
word 'such', to make it clear what sort of parity I was talking about.

~~~
mmirate
Ah, but this synonymy obscures the all-important difference between equality-
of-opportunity and equality-of-outcome.

The former is a noble goal; the latter will likely lead to tyranny if
implemented fully - or require tyranny for full implementation. (cf. Kurt
Vonnegut's _Harrison Bergeron_ )

~~~
danharaj
That's why I tried to identify precisely which equality I meant to avoid that
issue.

By the way, Harrison Bergeron was a critical satire of the position you're
describing.

~~~
mmirate
> By the way, Harrison Bergeron was a critical satire of the position you're
> describing.

Of equality-by-outcome? Yes, that was exactly why I cited it.

~~~
danharaj
It was a satire of the attitude of American society towards communism during
the cold war. The equality-by-outcome it presents is a strawman, precisely the
strawman attributed by conservative politics to people who want to make
society more equitable not just in "opportunity" but "outcome" as well.
Vonnegut was a socialist and was quite warm to concepts such as "from each
according to his ability, to each according to his need".

It's really hard to see how people miss this subtext when the main character
of the story declares himself the emperor that all must obey and defies
gravity. It's so cartoonishly heavy handed!

