NYT,pg1: Gray Matter and the Sexes: Still a Scientific Gray Area

[DeepModem Mom]

Gray Matter and the Sexes: Still a Scientific Gray Area
By NATALIE ANGIER and KENNETH CHANG

Published: January 24, 2005


When Lawrence H. Summers, the president of Harvard, suggested this month that one factor in women's lagging progress in science and mathematics might be innate differences between the sexes, he slapped a bit of brimstone into a debate that has simmered for decades. And though his comments elicited so many fierce reactions that he quickly apologized, many were left to wonder: Did he have a point?

Has science found compelling evidence of inherent sex disparities in the relevant skills, or perhaps in the drive to succeed at all costs, that could help account for the persistent paucity of women in science generally, and at the upper tiers of the profession in particular?

Researchers who have explored the subject of sex differences from every conceivable angle and organ say that yes, there are a host of discrepancies between men and women - in their average scores on tests of quantitative skills, in their attitudes toward math and science, in the architecture of their brains, in the way they metabolize medications, including those that affect the brain.

Yet despite the desire for tidy and definitive answers to complex questions, researchers warn that the mere finding of a difference in form does not mean a difference in function or output inevitably follows....


http://www.nytimes.com/2005/01/24/science/24women.html?oref=login&pagewanted=all&position=

[divineorder]

1. For those people who argue about differences:

I propose an experiment. Take 6-7 girls who show at say age 6, a real interest in science and math. Make sure that they get nothing but encouragement from teachers and peers, insure adequate funding for college. When they get to college, make sure all of their professors are non-sexist types who believe in their potential, that they have equal access to equipment and training. Then, when they graduate, make sure they have equal opportunity to either go corporate or succeed in the academy. Then, when they have children (most probably will) make sure that they have sufficient childcare, supportive husbands, and equal access to a support system that allows them time to really work on their calling.

Then we can see if there really is a difference-and if that difference matters all that much.

[Skittles]

5. YOU KNOW IT DIVINEORDER

until THESE disparities are addressed the OTHER stuff is POINTLESS.

[xchrom]

9. bingo

while the brain may be ordered differently -- there are no differences in output.
in any arena.
it's how we treat children culturally and socially that makes the difference.
and may i add -- it's about the body autonomous.
conservatives lie through their teeth -- it's men's bodies that they want to be autonomous -- not womens.
this bullshit argument over the abilities of women in the sciences has a direct bearing on the abortion argument.
if we raise girls who believe that their bodies and their minds are their own -- and raise them with that sense that {especially white}males have, a very different woman will emerge than what we have only begun to see since post modern feminism.

[noamnety]

13. age 6 is too old

By then the boys have bombarded with advertising showing them playing with legos while the girls have been shown they should be combing the hair of my pretty pony.

[Chalco]

14. Exactly..

when I was in my Ph.D. program all I heard was that a woman shouldn't be a Ph.D. Stop it and get married and make babies. This is a waste of time, you're just going to work for 3 years then quit to take care of babies, etc.

The comment by Summers that women can't put in the long hours really riled me (among other comments he made). THE REASON WOMEN CAN'T PUT IN LONG HOURS IS BECAUSE MEN DON'T PULL THEIR WEIGHT!!!!! Pure and simple.

What I think is more important in the male/female brain debate is the fact that men solve problems with one side of their brain and women use their whole brain. Now think about that...wouldn't we rather have each country run by a person who uses their whole brain and each parliament/congress dominated by people who use their whole brain than by people who use only one section of their brain.

This is the answer to world peace, global warming, world hunger and a family friendly world.

[AngryAmish]

15. So are you arguing that there are sex differences in the brain?

[Igel]

19. There are.

It's unpleasant to ponder if they yield any real-world differences--different systems can yield functionally indistinguisable results--but (as I've said before) it's an empirical question.

[Chalco]

38. I'm just stating data from research. Studies have shown that when

men solve problems they use primarily their left brain while women use the whole brain. Brain imaging equipment was used in the studies.

What then does that mean? I'm sure there's some overlap such that some men use more of their brain than other men and that some women use less of their brain than other women but overall at least in terms of problem solving women use more of their brain to solve problems than men.

So...why aren't women in charge of the world? My contention is that at one time they were. Now the men are. Sooner or later women will be in charge again. Cyclical perhaps. What would the world look/feel like if women were in charge?

[SoCalDem]

2. It's culture..not intelligence

At around 13, girls go "ga-ga" over boys, and if they are smart, they are sometimes looked down upon.. Our society values "cute" over intelligent every time..

So, when a "formerly smart" girl stops taking the challenging math and science courses, is it any surprise that by the time she graduates, she might be "behind" in those areas.. No one wants to "waste" college money taking remedial science and math courses, so she can then end up an aeronautical engineer..

In studies where boys and girls were in same sex classes for math , science and english classes, MOST scores went up..

Math and science are "pyramid courses".. You don't just take trigonometry as a senior, when the last math course you had was Alegbra 1 in 7th grade..

Schools are offering too many elective too, and allowing too many substitute courses.

If we are really serious about competing in a 21st Century Global econoomy, we are going to have to get tough and start requiring that students...ALL OF THEM, start getting a valid education...not just a piece of paper that says they "attended" for 12 years..

[imenja]

3. Here we go again

Pseudo-scientific justifications of sexism. Slate had a similar article. Can you imagine major news organizations printing articles making these claims about African-Americans? Somehow when it comes to women it is acceptable.

[gottaB]

6. I had a different impression of the article

The conclusions I drew from it were (a) scientists don't fully understand neurological differences between the sexes; and (b) sexism is probably the best explanation for gender inequalities in the sciences.

[imenja]

7. you're right I suppose

I'm just angry that the whole thing is taken seriously. There are any number of differences between people as individuals, but to focus on sex looking for signs of unequal performance seems to me an effort to justify discrimination. How scientists frame their research questions reflects the cultural assumptions of the period in which they live. These particular assumptions disturb me greatly.

[gottaB]

8. I'm in touch with your anger

I'm angry at the scientists who dabble in pseudoscience, and the popular media including the whole publishing industry. Last night I was frothing at the tube watching Saletan (who authored the piece you posted from Slate) make his arguments so earnestly.

Given that it has become a news story, and a lot of nitwits have weighed in on it, I'm somewhat heartened by the nyt piece.

Nevertheless, I'm in touch with your anger.

[AP]

21. I know a woman who is about 70 who was a science PhD.

She was the only woman in her program. After graduating she worked as a research scientist at a facility with close ties to a University and has mentored women PhD students here whole career.

She said that when she was a graduate student, the male students sabotaged one of her experiments in the final year when they were all applying for jobs. She said that they weren't very nice to her from the moment she started, but when they started competing for jobs, they really got nervous.

OK, that was 50 years ago. Guess what? As recently as five years ago, a student she mentored said the same exact thing happened to her at the same exact point in her career -- when people started getting worried about jobs.

Progress.

So, in all my life, I've never seen a single situation where I thought womem were failing because they -- as a gender -- weren't smarter then men. But now I've heard two stories of women academicians having their experiments sabotaged most likely because they were women.

[oldcoot]

27. You are correct to be angry

In the past, biological arguments have been used as justification for racial and sexual discrimination. It is really is not difficult to imagine the same "experts," who argue that men are innately better at math, will turn around and start asking "why are we even bothering teaching math to women and girls because they really do not have the capacity to understand math."

[Igel]

20. Yes, that was the conclusion.

But there's the word "probably".

And many still don't understand how to interpret most of the differences that have been found (whether nature- or nurture-related). The differences say nothing about individuals, just group tendencies, and say little about group tendencies at the extremes.

[EFerrari]

4. Researchers warn reading the NYT may lower brain function n/t

[Solon]

10. I'm utterly astonished that...

people would take the ideas of an economist so seriously, even when on the economy, much less a hard science such as biology. What he said was stupid and ignorant in many ways, and they do touch on that a little bit. But the biggest reason for the stupidity of it is two fold, first, we have little to know clue as to how to quantify intelligence, even within one field, and therefore, and judgements based on that are spurious to say the least. The Second reason is the fact that culture, a male dominated culture at that, can have an adverse effect on test scores and the like. For example, as study was done in Northern Ireland that found that the IQ level of Catholics was lower, I forget by how much, somewhere around 10 to 20 points lower than Protestants. This tells me that these tests and the way they are done penalizes those who think they are in a minority, whether in real numbers or culturally, such as women.

Even a physical examination of the brain, whether female or male, may lead to more questions than answers. For example, scientists thought for years that brain size correlates with intelligence, well, that is wrong, otherwise elephants or whales would be the dominant species, not us. So the Brain to body ratio was created, and it is possibly closer to the truth, so when female brains are, on average, smaller than male brains, then all that means is they have a smaller body size as well. This means nothing in regards to mental ability or adaptation.

That is I believe the key, adaptation, the two reasons we as humans have come as far as we have is because, for one, we can use our brains and adapt to damn near any enviroment, and two, we breed like rabbits. :) Our brains physically change when we assimilate new information into them, when we learn, we change and grow. This is why the nature versus nurture argument is so prevasive. We do not know where the line is, or if there is even a line to begin with that it would be hard to put any limit on it. Even the differences that are present could be changed with conditioning and pervasive learning and culture change. I am sure that if we lived in a female dominated society a Ms. Lorie H. Summers would bring up the same shitstorm by saying the exact same thing about male brains. I think any quantitive differences would be cultural much more than physical.

[IndianaGreen]

11. Did he have a point?

And though his comments elicited so many fierce reactions that he quickly apologized, many were left to wonder: Did he have a point?

What point is that? The same point advocated by those racists that say that Blacks are inherently inferior to Whites? I am appalled that this intellectual version of David Duke is still allowed to sit as President of Harvard. Perhaps Mr. Summers will feel more at home as president of Bob Jones University.

[divineorder]

12. The Tragedy is that he does head Harvard

He's in a position to hire and fire faculty, determine wages for both support and faculty. While he may (I hope) leave the actual curriculum to the various departments, the attitude that he feels comfortable enough to express in public may well have been communicated in private to enough institutional supporters to create a discriminatory environment.

Wonder how he feels about equal wages, women Professors in the Sciences, and other real-life issues regarding women? Neanderthal is probably kind for this guy.

And what does these statements say to prospective women scholars and students that he dismisses the effect on them so readily? Is he so insulated from the effect that he doesn't have a clue?

[One_Life_To_Give]

16. Can't commmit sacraledge

We may never know if there is any truth to this or not. Anyone contemplating this line of scientific inquiry is immediatly beseiged by calls for their head. Not unlike it was for Copernicus.

Dogma that insists men and women must be equal in every possible endeavor are as foolish as beleifs that a field of endeavor should be mono-gender.

[oldcoot]

26. There is no truth to Summers' comments

Summers was not quoting any scientific studies that proved women and girls were innately inferior to men and boys in math. The only evidence he actually did present of difference between males and females was a "cute" little story about one of his little girls naming her trucks. Obviously, one child is not a large enough sample size to make any generalizations about innate sexual differences. Feminists were correct to criticize Summers for his sexist comments. It is very disturbing that any academic would make such comments without having any real evidence.

Indeed, the article makes it clear that there have been many studies done on gender and mathematical ability. According to these studies, male students do not consistently do better than female students in math. For example, female students in Iceland score better in math than male students. Unless there is a significant biological difference between American and Icelandic women and girls, we should look at cultural and not biological differences to explain why U.S. women and girls often do not enter mathematical fields and often do not do well in math.

[Igel]

22. At UCLA in 1991 or 1992 there was "racist science":

a physiologist's research showed that blacks' and whites' large muscles have different average proportions of the two types of muscle tissue.

Protesters and advocacy groups on campus concluded the science was racist, in reality there was no such difference, and the physiologist was racist. There could be no differences between the two races, it could not be an empirical question. After all, any difference *must* by its very nature lead to racist discrimination, and itself comprise some sort of racist or eugenecist agenda.

Fast forward a decade or more. It's suddenly essential to identify race-based differences in reactions and efficacy of drugs, and to identify and explain race-based differences in susceptibility to chronic conditions such as hypertension and diabetes (whether these are due to genetics or culture). All of a sudden *not* looking for physiological differences is racist.

Facts can be used for good or bad, and be able to withstand scrutiny. The answer isn't saying the facts aren't there, or shouldn't be sought.

[Runcible Spoon]

29. you're confusing two issues

You said: "It's suddenly essential to identify race-based differences in reactions and efficacy of drugs, and to identify and explain race-based differences in susceptibility to chronic conditions such as hypertension and diabetes (whether these are due to genetics or culture)" PLEASE recognize the difference between race and ethnicity. Race (which I as an anthropologist do not recognize as a biologically/genetically determined category)is not the same as ethnicity. People constantly conflate these two issues; same goes for gender and sex. You recognize that certain ethnic groups (even perhaps sharing certain physiological traits) may be more susceptible to hypertension, diabetes, etc. and then you go on to admit that these susceptibilities may be in part of fully due to cultural/social factors, such as poverty, poor access to health care, etc. You CANNOT argue that these susceptibilites are "race-based" UNLESS you accept that race can be genetically/biologically categorized. And it can't. Those in the medical field often conflate race/ethnicity to warn that certain populations may be at higher risk for certain conditions, or react to medications differently. CORRELATION IS NOT THE SAME AS CAUSATION. While certain populations may have a higher proportion of traits in common, it DOES NOT mean that they are "races".

[Igel]

40. I do recognize the difference; it's just that I don't have the

right words. (I also think culture theorists and their supporters should check out prototype semantics.)

The problem is that ethnicity isn't tied to genetics in any necessary way, any more than culture or language is, and I can't see using "ethnicity" for "subrace": I lack a nomenclature system to handle physical, genetic relationships (which are unchangeable given the state of the art), and people keep trying to use the much more interesting cultural/ethnic labels in their place. For example, I know of several pre-Slavic ethnonyms and their rough locations in European Russia (not to mention tribes that have melted into the greater Russian population in the last couple of hundred years); I check out Russian dialect maps, and find some few distinctive traits, but nothing that's definitive or not swamped by other, stronger dialectal features. Folk traditions and rituals don't help much, either.

I look at gene distributions, and there they are. It's harder to find features specific to Baltic tribes and easier to find where the Finnic tribes were. I suspect I'd find the same kind of thing in southern Africa, where Bantus wiped out or assimilated most of the Khoe-San population.

Botanists have the same kind of problem, but they had Linnaeus to help out, and no science-as-advocacy people stirring the waters. They look at populations, and if they're distinct enough, they're "species"; if they're clearly in the same species, but distinct, they're "varieties"; "subvarieties" follow (but I don't think that's accepted taxonomic practice). And there are various kinds of crosses of types, and continua in which definable varieties are clearly present at certain points, but in between it's taxonomic mush. People argue about classification, and sometimes taxa are merged or split, or people can't decide. And nobody gets much bent out of shape.

BTW, do you know Mitchell-Kernan?

[Festivito]

17. Seems akin to racial profiling.

That doesn't help find a criminal.
This won't help find a child prodigy.

Harvard... finding average people interesting?

[AP]

18. Last time Summers had a public relations problem, the NYT put him on the

cover of the Magazine and wrote a long, fawning article about him that barely got into the problems with Cornell West.

[Demeter]

23. Has Anyone Considered the Significance of Goals?

Why would a girl or woman work especially hard in a field where she isn't wanted, and won't be rewarded in any way commensurate with her talents, training, or the rewards of her male cohorts?

Furthermore, when a woman has to choose between work and family, she has only a limited window of opportunity for family. If work won't yield, it gets thrown overboard. Nobody ever died saying "I wish I spent more time in the lab."

[karynnj]

25. What if you're female and like math and science?

As a woman who worked for 24 years in various analytical support organizations in a major company,I resent the idea that you would suggest that because some small minded people think these are male fields. Over the years that I was employed women went from a small minority to around half of the group.

My own experience when I had children, after 13 years, was that I had the skills, respect and background that let me request to work 30 hours a week, flexible hours, and often via computer from home. It also let me take a one year leave of absence when each child was born. For me having the training and expertise I did enabled me to achieve a balance between my family and my career.

Even during the time when I was part-time, I was well rewarded for my work and judged fairly based on my accomplishments. I was also doing the type of work that I enjoyed and did well.

[Demeter]

28. Lucky You

a minority among the minority

[karynnj]

43. Not that much of a minority

I think because I was in math / economics, rather than engineering I was not that isolated. Even in 1972, AT&T Bell Labs was making major efforts to hire women in technical fields. By 2000, the department I was in was about half women.

I was lucky to have many very good supervisors who were committed to making things work out. In one job, I was brought onto the project to eventually take over from a pregnant co-worker, then about a year later we again worked on another project and she took over when I took leave to have my third child. We told our supervisor we felt bad that he had to manage around 3 of us taking maturnity/child care leaves in a 18 month period. His reply was that it was much better to get almost 6 month's notice each time and in each case lots of co-operation in transitioning projects - the norm often being 2 weeks + notice.

[Robert Oak]

24. discrimination and bias

at the end of the article is a study proving discrimination
in hiring of female engineers.

nuf said.

This study is amusing in that it acts like math and science and engineering are not stuck in the 1950's (when the womans' rights were being sent back to the stone age) but indeed they are.

How many times have women engineers seen male engineers overtalk
them in meetings, try to tell them how to do the most simple
engineering tasks, ignore them and go to the male for anything
"really technical"
imply they should know about "aesthetics" like GUI design while a guy
should know about statistics...

I've seen it over and over again in Silicon valley.

[renaldo]

30. There are differences between males and females

in brain wiring. I am married to a software engineer and she is very bright. She writes code, designs graphical user interfaces, and is in every way smart and inquisitive. She inspires me all the time.

She also has no sense of direction, and weak spatial skills - i.e., she has a hard time judging spaces and distances. These are classic differences. She is also very spiritual and intuitive - skills I am not so good at.

I just enjoy the difference. She likes me too!

[Runcible Spoon]

31. give me a fucking break

"no sense of direction and weak spatial skills...classic differences"...lemme guess, you refuse to stop for directions when she's driving, right? :eyes:

I was going to post a whole thing about how different cultures perceive space and time, how it is socialized according to needs of environmental interaction (for example the Guugu Yhimdhirr tribes in Australia do not perceive spatiality as being ecocentrically arranged; ie not left right up down behind in front (from self); instead all space is statically arranged according to directions which roughly correlate to our cardinal directions) but your comment is too igorant to spend the time.

[readmoreoften]

33. More brilliant science

Univeristy of Texas at Austin was conducting research on the length of lesbian fingers. Research on lesbian fingers was even featured in a BBC news article. So what is their 'brilliant' discovery?

Male infants have a flood of hormones that make their left pointer fingers shorter than their ring fingers. So lesbians who are-- according to these brilliant researchers-- all masculine naturally have shorter pointers than ring fingers too.

Well, I'm a lesbian and I'm not masculine and my left pointer shorter. My girlfried IS masculine and her left pointer isn't fucking shorter either.

I guess we should break up, because according to science.. we're straight as arrows.

If we're not fighting the New Inquisition we're dealing with Pseudo Science.

[Runcible Spoon]

34. well I'm bisexual, so where does that leave my fingers???

well fuck me, my pointer and ring fingers are the same. Guess that formula works :eyes: /sarcasm off/ Well, I have a choice finger for these fuckwads:

[readmoreoften]

32. That's not a difference between men and women

That's a difference between you and your wife.

I'm female and have a better sense of direction than any (and I mean ANY) of the men I know. And spare me all the 'spiritual and intuitive' crap. I know plenty of intuitive men, and...hey... aren't the "spiritual" leaders of our nation all men?

[happyslug]

36. I am going to get in trouble, but here is some comments anyway

There are Differences between men and women, the real problem is determining if the differences are physical or cultural and if Cultural can the difference be eliminated (and do we want to?).

I remember seeing a show in the 1970s about men and women being driven around blindfolded and than being asked which directions they came from. Men did better than women in this experiment. The author of the Study concluded that men had better sense of Direction than women. One factor the author of that study did not consider was how much EXPERIENCE did the women and men have in finding their way home? In most cases boys are permitted to go out more than girls and if girls are left out without a parent they tend to be left with older male relatives (or boy friends of the girls). In such situations the older male "take charge" and lead the rest of the party to where ever the group is going. Thus most women have less experience in needing to find what direction to go than men. Thus the result of the experiment may not be the difference between men and women but one of a culture of leaving men lead and women follow. This was subsequent confirmed when it came to a study of London Cabbies. In a series of Autopsies (Permitted by the Cabbies relatives) London Cabbies where found to have extra growth in the part of the brain that is believed to relate to direction. Thus the use of the brain for direction lead to enhancement of that part of the brain. This again showed that EXPERIENCE may be more important than what sex you are (All of the Cabbies had been male, but the growth was way more than the "normal" growth of that part of the Brain among other males).

On the other hand you had the recent MRI research that shows men when called on to use their memory only use one side of their brain while women use both sides. This has been stated as showing why Women tend to remember things better than men, but further testing on the subject needs to be done.

The big difference between men and women relate more to physical difference and how the brain interact with those differences. For example men are top heavy (Men's center of Gravity is in the middle of their Chest) while women center of Gravity is around their womb. The reason for this is muscle is four times heavier than fat by Volume. Men's muscles tend to be around their chest area. Women have the strongest single muscle in the Human Body, the Muscle to push out a baby when it is born. Thus women's weight is centered around her waist (A woman's mammary glands tend to be fat in nature and therefore light weight compared to Muscles by Volume).

This difference in center of gravity leads to various difference is how women and men do things and thus how their look at the world. First women tend to cradle heavy items in their arms. The reason for this is Women want to hold the weight OVER their center of Gravity. Men tend to put the item out further, the reason is a man's center of gravity in in his arm area thus to center the weight over his legs he has to balance between his center of gravity (His chest) and the weight he is carrying.

Another area of Physical Difference is the smaller hands and arms of women, permitting women to do weave things tighter than a man (and thus developer women's superior ability to do intricate work). Notice I do not think it is her BRAIN that permits a women to do intricate work, but that since her fingers are smaller, she can do more intricate work and thus she does it more often and thus develops that part of her brain that permits her to do intricate work. I recently watched a show abut rock climbing and the woman and man in the show used different techniques to climb the rock face. The Difference related more to her smaller hands and lower center of Gravity than any difference in thought process.

The only difference between men and women when it comes to learning (which is NOT tied in with the physical difference between men and women) tend to be in the area of language. Adult Women tend to learn foreign languages better than adult men (through both are weaker than children under the age of five in learning different languages). Recent MRI studies indicate adult men and women tend to learn the language the same way (Through Children tend to learn the language and store that knowledge of that language in a different part of the Brain than an adult). The traditional reason for this difference is learning language has been women's tendency throughout history to move in with a different family upon marriage while men tend to stay with their parent's family. Thus women had to learn the language of her "new" family. Again this may just be a product of society preparing women for such a change as opposed to a real mental difference.

This brings us to Culture. Men and Women still want to pair off. 94% of all humans form into pair couples (The reminding 6% covers all other human relationships including living alone, living with more than one mate, or with someone of the same sex). Thus the pair-bond is the "Norm" for Humans. Men and women bring into the pair-bond different physical attributes. With these different physical attributes they also bring into the pair-bond different aspects of their own cultures. The key to a successful pair-bond is that this combination of man and woman exceeds the mere addition of the male to the female (or female to the male). As a general rule it does. In agricultural societies men did the heavy work, women did the detail work. What the women did freed up the men to do more heavy work, and what the men did freed up the women to do more details (and made life easier all the way around).

To clarify this lets look at the Spinning wheels. When I go to a Colonial site there is always a spinning wheel. It is explained that all women had these as did most young girls. It is told that the women spinned all day to make thread. The thread was then taken to a Weaver who weaved the thread into cloth. The Weaver took so much of the Cloth as his payment (Which he than sold to people in urban areas for their use and to be used as Sails). During these conversations no mention is made of what the boys were doing, you almost have the impression all the boys were doing were playing in the fields and having a good old time. But that was not the case. The boys were in the fields, but cutting down the flax grown in the fields and than taking the flax to a board filled with nails. The boys would than slam the flax onto the board and than pull the flax through. The boys (and men) would continue this till the flax where torn into very long but very small strains. This would be taken to their Sister, Mother, Wife or Daughter to spin into thread. Man's superior upper body strength was used to change the Flax to Linen strains, and than women's smaller hands were used to spin the strains of Flax into thread. Together you had a product that could be sold in the local market (and was a major part of the Rural Economy till spinning factories became the norm after 1800).

Notice it was the Physical ability of men and women that provided what duty each preformed in producing thread. At the same time what each did also enhanced how their perceived what they were doing. Women had to worry even more about detail, and the men had to make sure their had enough strength to pull the flax through the nails.

This difference in sex related Jobs continued while into the 20th century. Physical demanding jobs were reserved for men, detailed orientated jobs were reserved for women (and this did not mean the jobs were safer for women than men, in the coal fields keeping the air shafts clear tended to be a job held by young boys and women for neither had the strength to haul the coal out but women had enough strength to keep coal dust out of the air shafts. Please note many a boy and many a woman died cleaning these shafts, it was a job as dangerous as coal mining at less pay).

With improvements in machinery the role of women and men changed again. The first generation of Automotive Engines tends to be designed around a man's straight not only to repair but to operate. When the Engines became to big to be operated by brute Strength power assist was introduced. With Power Assist even women could move some of the big engines. Thus the physical difference between men and women in the work place started to decline and with that decline men and women started to be viewed as interchangeable except for cultural norms.

Since the 1960s the movement has been to view women and men interchangeable for most occupations. Outdoor work tend to be still heavy in nature and thus male dominated (Through care for the elderly and handicap also tend to be heavy in nature and dominated by Females).

Before I go into Culture proper lets first look into sex. Sexual activity is part of being Human and is part of the pair-bond relationship. Each partner brings in both physical and cultural needs. Women's needs tend to be more to be "protected" while men's need is for someone to take care of the "small things". These needs can be seen in the sex act itself, with most women wanting their mates to be the "dominate" person during the sex act (at the same time with who, when, where and how the sex is to be done tends to be decided by the woman). I believe these needs of women are psychological in nature, but given these "needs" of women, women to have these needs meet often will adopt a supportive role to their man. Women want their man to succeed, their want their man to do good, even if the women is made secondary in her own life. Most of the so-call Cultural bias regarding women must be seen in this context. As one woman told me, She wants a man who earns enough so she can concentrate on raising her children.

Now is the later Cultural, Sexual or Sexual Bias? Do women accept an inferior position for themselves based on Culture or is it just Culture manifesting her sexual needs? Is the Culture of women inferiority to men one of Sexual Bias or a product of women's collective Sexual needs? Or is the so call Sexual Bias a product of the physical nature of Women and men and women's and men's sexual needs? Do women let part of their own development decline knowing that men have that same development? (i.e. why duplicate learning in the pair-bond).

In my own opinion, women accept an "inferior" position to men only in those areas where men's physical strength gives men an advantage. Most men do the same when in comes to women's superior strengths (and to the care of children and most things regarding what she needs to take care of the Children). Women and men will develop those part of the brain their believe will help their pair-bond. Thus each pair-bond has to be looked at collectively not as two people but as one person. We have to be careful that we do not fall into the old Common Law rule that a Husband and wife was one person and that person was the Husband, but we also have to realize that the pair-bond is more than two people who happen to live together.

[VegasWolf]

35. This begs the question, can gays be mathematicians?n/t

[quaker bill]

37. The physical differences can be measured and are real.

But why does nearly everyone posting in this thread seem to assume that if we accept that there are differences, then men got the better half of the bargain?

Men die younger.

My experience of the two genders suggests that if anything, women got the better end of this deal as well.

Maybe they aren't quite as good at math because they choose instead to spend their time and energy developing their vastly better language and social skills.

Have you ever noticed that men are more than a bit ham fisted in this regard?

The real question is why we culturally and economically value one set of skills above another.

Finally, the measured average differences between the genders are not that profound. Variability about the mean suggests that some women will be vastly more skilled than the average man in any field of endeavor. Nothing in these studies can be honestly read as supporting individual prejudicial bias toward any member of either gender.

[Chalco]

41. I wear the pants in my marriage and my husband wears the skirt...

What's that make us???

[henrik larssonisking]

39. gotta say i hope we are different

i think both sexes have different skill sets and abilities to bring to the table. I think that there is definetly a big difference when it comes to physical abilities so it shouldnt be a shock that theres big differences in mental abilities.

[Robert Oak]

42. "Science" come on really

people are quick to accept this "science" yet few realize that
blacks were and continue to be "proven" as having "differences"
in "skill level" by "scientific study".

Why is it when those obviously biased "studies" are released
it's recognized for what it is...people laugh out loud
and know it's racism, absolute.

But, when they do this to women...people actually believe it.

What makes everyone here think that the brain is a "static" function?
That a snapshot is the value always.

Has anyone bothered to investigate the "scientific results" of
blacks and their organic brain synaptic junctions and chemistry
before and after the civil rights bill of 1964? Amazingly enough...
may of those "rock solid" scientific "studies" were disproven once repression social barriers were removed and the results took root.

Could it be that this "science" is as about as advanced as their previous claims that head size could determine IQ?

This is the same sort of bullshit rationale that continues to keep Mileva Einstein in the shadows, never recognized for her work in 1905 and the "male" continuing to get the credit.

http://www.pbs.org/opb/einsteinswife/

Anyone even aware of the many biased "studies" claiming women
didn't have a prayer's chance in hell of getting married after the age of 35? Anyone know those "scientific" "statistics" were completely flawed and disproven?

Could it be that "science" is also being used to a political end?

Can anyone say "free trade theory" and investigate what multinational corporate think thanks and corporate given research grants produced the research?