Gender is More Than A Social Construct

Feminists are fond of saying that there are no psychological differences between men and women.

Who are you going to believe? Feminists or what your common sense tells you. Science backs common sense.

Psychology Today

A positive d value such as +0.50 typically indicates men are moderately higher on a psychological measure, a negative value like -0.50 indicates women are moderately higher. Below are some d values of varying strengths that have been observed in studies on human sex differences:

A d value of -0.20 has been observed for sex differences in trust (Feingold, 1994). The size of this sex difference is considered “small” and indicates 58% of women are higher than average man in trust (based on Cohen’s U3).

A d value of +0.50 has been observed for sex differences in spatial rotation skills (Silverman et al., 2007). The size of this sex difference is considered “moderate” and indicates 69% of men are higher than average woman in spatial rotation skills.

A d value of +0.80 has been observed for sex differences in physical aggression (Archer, 2004). The size of this sex difference is considered “large” and indicates 79% of men are higher than average woman in physical aggression.

A d value of -1.00 has been observed for sex differences in tender-mindedness (Feingold, 1994). The size of this sex difference indicates 84% of women are higher than average man in tender-mindedness.

A d value of +2.00 has been observed for sex differences in throwing distance among children (Thomas & French, 1985). The size of this sex difference indicates 98% of boys throw farther than the average girl.

As I have noted in earlier posts, sex differences with larger d values are not “more real” than smaller-sized sex differences (see here). All men do not have to be taller than all women for a sex difference in average height to be “real” and have important social consequences. Sex differences with larger d values also are not necessarily more attributable to evolution or biology, and smaller sex differences are not more cultural or due to learning than larger sex differences.

 In short, it is probably not true that psychological sex differences should be described as trivially small overall, especially if you know what to look at (heuristically guided by evolutionary theory), where to look (across a wide range of cultures), and how to look (using multivariate approaches). Men and women are members of the same species, but psychologically there are important differences that should not be overlooked if we are to maximize everyone’s medical, mental, and sexual health.


(Source: saboteur365.wordpress.com)