“For uncountable generations, women have shaped men, men have shaped women, and here we are – the product of this remarkable, complicated history. If we understand this, our judgment becomes less superficial and broader, whether they like the way we are or would prefer to change it.”
It’s time for you and us to have a heart-to-heart discussion about sex. By sex, we mean the other kind, about the minds of women and men. There are converging statements of empirical evidence from medical genetics, cross-cultural psychology, new transsexuality research, and neuroscience. It combines with our evolutionary heritage and directs us to the same path: psychological differences between women and men exist.
While our physical differences in anatomy and size are apparent, the confusion of psychological differences between the two genders is a lot more controversial and complicated. There are issues around how to measure the differences adequately. And when psychologists get to the roots of the cause, there are arguments over whether the reasons are biological, innate, or cultural and social.
So, what do you think: are women and men born different, or does the world shape them that way?
It’s truly a matter of thought. But we can get to the bottom of this by understanding how sex-based behaviors work. Let’s learn!
Female and Male Personalities
A massive number of well-done researches have painted a rather unswerving picture of gender differences in personality that are blindingly consistent across cultures. It turns out that the most apparent gender differences are evident at the “slender” level of personality traits, not the “wide-ranging” level.
At the comprehensive level, we have a few features, such as neuroticism and acceptance. But when you look at each of these factors’ specific traits, you come to know that a few qualities that males score higher on, while on others, females take the lead. Hence, the dissimilarities cancel out each other. This shut-out gives the appearance that gender differences in personality do not exist; when, in reality, they’re everywhere!
As an example, females and males, on average, do not differ plenty on extraversion. Still, at the “slender” level, you can witness that males are more assertive whereas females are more friendly and pleasant. What does the overall image look like for females and males when diving deeper into the broad personality level?
By far our discussion might be tingling your ability to learn more about the human mind. For such an experience, a bachelor’s degree in psychology would be helpful. You can get a chance to do in-depth research on gender differences and unlock more variations.
The Truth Behind “Gender Differences”
As said by John Gray: Men are from Mars, Women are from Venus.
However, the Mars-Venus sex dissimilarities appear to be as fabled as the Man on the Moon. According to a 2005 analysis of 46 analyses, men and women are alike in cognitive ability, leadership, and personality. Some psychologists even discovered that females and males from childhood to adulthood are more similar than different on some psychological variables, resulting in a “gender similarities hypothesis.”
Furthermore, the analysis presented evidence that gender dissimilarities alter with age, growing larger or smaller at particular times in life. This fluctuation indicates that not all differences are stable.
Erraticism Among Genders
As said almost everywhere above, there is evidence that men show more significant variability on many traits than women. If we measure nearly every ability – whether it is a physical characteristic such as weight, height, or a psychological characteristic such as extraversion or intelligence – the scores usually distribute.
Most individuals score around the average, and the intensity of totals tapers off toward the dissipations. This distribution is valid for both women and men. Most people are in the middle of this bell-shaped distribution, and relatively few people have very high or low scores on whatever we are measuring.
But one thing remains: on multiple characteristics, men score at the extremes.
Let’s consider physical height. Of course, on an average note, men are taller than women. However, men show more variability around the typical size than women. When we choose to describe it differently, there are more short men than tall.
But could this extra difference explain why men are prone to have social and behavioral problems than women? The fact that men are more adjustable than women may automatically lead to men having more problems.
The Convolutions of Human Behavior
Indeed, women have their series of psychological troubles – they are more likely to become blue than men. On the flip side, men specialize in self-destructive, aggressive, and non-social problems.
The primary causes of these differences are tricky to understand. However, researchers can document the characteristics that are associated with these variations between women and men. There is no easy way to identify what causes child abuse, murder, alcoholism, and homelessness. The reason is that we can not do controlled experiments to verify the causes.
Furthermore, behavioral scientists have made astounding progress in understanding differences between women and men. Yet, the intrinsic convolution of human behavior means that some mysteries are a hard nut to crack.
Conclusion
Men and women aren’t the same – let’s nip this in the bud.
Still, in some instances, their interests align. But there are a few behavioral metamorphoses that make us want to delve deeper into the world of human psychology. Other than that, it is critical to acknowledge that natural sex differences are not necessarily morally justifiable or acceptable. There are some sex differences whose development society needs to redress actively, such as the massive depression in females and autism in males.
There is only one way to eliminate these undesirable expansions – understanding their biological background, leading to recognizing their existence.
