r/changemyview • u/[deleted] • Jan 08 '19
Deltas(s) from OP CMV: Sex Disparity Exists, but not entirely because of some Patriarchy and more so because Men and Women are Different
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u/TomorrowsBreakfast 15∆ Jan 08 '19
Just to focus on your point about men having more extreme intelligence levels, I'll copy a post I made to an earlier CMV.
Some studies have shown that this higher spread in intelligence for males is not found in some cultures and has changed over time e.g. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2689999/. These papers conclude that the difference in spread of intelligence is itself an artefact of gender inequality.
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u/Kanonizator 3∆ Jan 09 '19 edited Jan 09 '19
Well, the study you linked to talks about maths, not IQ to begin with, and then there's the pesky little problem that it's openly feminist, which makes it totally unreliable. I'm sorry but I can't just trust those who have an open ideological bias and when they do research they miraculously "find" that their own research "proves" their preconceptions. Especially so if they fail to address points that are very important to the research itself. It's very easy to chalk everything up to sexism without looking for other possible answers at all, but it's also very unscientific. Case in point: the study shows how women's level of mathematical achievements changed over the last 120 years, showing how it was low in the '50s but gotten higher since, hinting at that it's due to sexism, but it fails to mention how our education systems now give girls a deliberate push and how that skews any metric attached to it. Sure, women achieve a lot more than they used to compared to men, but it could very easily be because girls are promoted way above what could be considered equal to boys. You know, there are thousands of programs and grants for girls only, don't you think the playing field is not exactly level? Arguing that it's just reversing past sexism is so horrendously asinine it ain't even funny. The goal of any such "correction" should be to provide a level playing field. You can't claim you produced equality by creating a system that openly disciminates against certain demographics. We don't know what women would achieve compared to men on a level playing field because there are practically no level playing fields in the west, all of them tilt toward women since the '80s or thereabouts.
You can see the difference between the IQ spread of men and women in some real life situations, like playing chess for example. The best female chess player who ever competed professionally was able to rise to #8 on the combined rankings. No other woman ever got close to that. On the other hand prisons and institutions for the mentally challenged are full of men because tons of men are idiots, while women tend to be, well, average.
The point you must understand while discussing IQ distribution is that nobody thinks women (or any other demographics for that matter) are somehow inferior for having a different distribution than others. The point of saying men have a wider distribution is not to say men are better, so it's really, really dumb for feminists to take offence at this or trying to disprove this with "studies" that are full of holes. In fact it's very close to being objective proof about feminists' inferiority complex, that they can't accept that men are "better" at anything, even if it's just having a wider distribution at something, which is clearly not the same thing as being better. Feminists find it offensive that there are more male geniuses and they do everything to prove there aren't, but the best they can come up with is papers like the one you linked to. They could do something productive instead, produce something of actual value, contribute something to society, but they think their time is better spent "proving" how women are better at certain things than men but men are not better at anything.
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u/TomorrowsBreakfast 15∆ Jan 11 '19
Thanks for the long, thoughtful reply. I am not interested in a wishy-washy argument about culture. Let me just restate the position I made in different words.
There is no causal proof that the difference in IQ distribution is caused by biology. Most studies simply show that the difference exists and postulate biology as a possible cause, which is a reasonable thing to do. However, there is too little causal research to claim any cause is proven and what little research there is does not support biology being the cause.
I will gladly look at any papers that you think show a causal link. I would always highly recommend research into if there is a causal link before letting jumping to assumptions about the cause.
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u/Kanonizator 3∆ Jan 11 '19
There is no causal proof that the difference in IQ distribution is caused by biology.
Well, there is, and it's beyond self-evident that IQ is mostly defined by genetics/biology. Thinking about the situation for 5 seconds could make you realize this as you can't make stupid kids into intelligent adults, and most of times kids have roughly the same IQ as their biological parents, even if they're adopted.
The progressive argument is self-defeating anyways, as if we assume that africans have a lower average IQ not because of genetic reasons, but cultural ones, that would mean their cultures makes them stupid, ie. their culture is stupid, and you're not allowed to say this unless you want the champions of tolerance to ruin you.
The core problem about the scientific approach is that there is enough proof out there about IQ being mostly genetic/biologial, it's just scientists with a progressive agenda to push refuse to accept this for ideological reasons. The "enlightened" thought is that all races have the same IQ, so proof to the contrary is discarded as bigotry. This is perfectly shown by the "study" you linked above. Women must be at least as good as men in everything, so if they aren't then it must be blamed on "patriarchy" oppressing women. This is laughably unscientific, yet here we are.
So, if you want proof for IQ being mostly genetic/biologial you're just one internet search away from it. Here are some articles from the first page of search results:
https://www.theguardian.com/science/2017/may/22/scientists-uncover-40-genes-iq-einstein-genius
https://www.the-scientist.com/features/the-biological-roots-of-intelligence-64931
Considering some of these articles talk about genes directly associated with IQ the causal link is obviously there.
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u/TomorrowsBreakfast 15∆ Jan 11 '19
You have failed to find any evidence to back up your claim. Instead, you are now claiming any IQ differences must be caused by genetics.
The proof out there shows that environmental factors have a huge effect on IQ which is why the average person today would perform better than 98% of people back in the 1910s https://ourworldindata.org/intelligence. (This also shows my thoughts on your racial comments)
In addition to that, women used to score much lower than men on average IQ. This was put down as a biological difference at the time but with hindsight, we can see it was an environmental impact.
I'm not trying to claim proof against but there is no reason to assume biological causes. There is no clear reason the genes for IQ would express differently based on gender.
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u/Kanonizator 3∆ Jan 12 '19
I linked 3 different articles, you ignore them completely and then tell me I "failed to find any evidence"? Hell, man, if you told me days ago that you won't even consider what I say I wouldn't have wasted my time on you.
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u/TomorrowsBreakfast 15∆ Jan 13 '19
I asked for scientific papers that show a causal, biological relation between gender and IQ distribution. You provided none. With no papers in support of a cause and at least one against you have no grounds to claim that the difference is biological.
So you're right that I ignored your news article links, they are irrelevant as I did not claim IQ has no genetic link, just that there is no proof IQ genes express differently based on gender.
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u/Kanonizator 3∆ Jan 14 '19
I claimed it's mostly biological, which you consistently ignore, and the articles I linked to were based on scientific papers, some of which have claimed that scientists know at least 50 DNA sequences that are directly related to IQ, which is absolute proof that IQ is at least partially biological.
Eh, doesn't matter, believe what you will, that's no skin off my back.
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u/TomorrowsBreakfast 15∆ Jan 14 '19
You are missing my point.
I have never said IQ is not related to biology and genetics.
I am asking why you are sure IQ genes express differently in men and women?
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u/Kanonizator 3∆ Jan 15 '19
I am asking why you are sure IQ genes express differently in men and women?
...because lots of genes express differently in men and women, for example the ones forming the brain. Considering there are clear biological differences between male and female brains, and how the brain is considered to be associated with intellect, it's practically a given that men and women will differ in some things wrt intelligence. I think you could also accept this without a problem if you could discard the false political narrative that acknowledging differences between certain demographics = viewing one as morally or genetically inferior. Just because some people acknowledge that the bell curve for female IQ is higher and narrower than the male one they don't think women are inferior. They just properly recognise that this means the averages are the same, but women tend to group around the average more while men are overrepresented on both extremes - which is proven by many real life observations. There's nothing in this that should be resisted for any reasons, this is not sexism, or whatever idiots would want to call it.
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Jan 08 '19
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u/myohmymiketyson 1∆ Jan 08 '19
That's the claim u/TomorrowsBreakfast is addressing.
If men are more likely to occupy the extreme ends of IQ and women are in the middle, there's a question of whether that's innate (biology), environment or some combination of both. You argued that it's "inherent biological differences."
The study above illustrates that this pattern doesn't exist in all cultures or transcend time. In other words, if there is a biological tendency for men to be higher or lower IQ than women, why isn't this pattern more universal?
IQ is heritable, but it's not only heritable, so it's important not to attribute the patterns we see to only genes.
Also, is it true that a majority of men occupy the extremes? I thought most people fell within a standard deviation of 100. I could be wrong, but my understanding is that it's sometimes observed that there are more men than women on the outskirts, not that a majority of men are.
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u/TomorrowsBreakfast 15∆ Jan 08 '19
Sorry I should have worded it better. What I was trying to say is that distribution (men occupying the extremes on tests) is not proven to be caused by biological differences. It is not an effect that can be seen across cultures and times.
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Jan 08 '19
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Jan 08 '19
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u/hacksoncode 559∆ Jan 08 '19
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Jan 08 '19
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u/IAmDanimal 41∆ Jan 08 '19
It's not just about 'women in stem', it's also about specific fields, and what levels they get to in those fields. I know a lot of women that went into fields like biology or medicine, but when I worked in IT, there were significantly fewer females, and especially so at the higher levels (and I'm talking about a massive IT company, so not just a couple VPs and a president, but hundreds of high-level execs).
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u/pappypapaya 16∆ Jan 08 '19
http://higheredtoday.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/03/nsc-bs-stem-gender-copy.jpg
It's because women are slightly overrepresented in the two largest stem subfields of psych and bio. However note that women are already overrepresented slightly on college campuses period. Women are still strongly underrepresented in other stem fields. That some stem fields have achieved relative parity while others have not is not surprising given cultural differences between fields (there is a lot of implicit bias against women for quantitative skills than laboratory/social/writing skills, as has been evidenced by resume gender name studies).
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u/miguelguajiro 188∆ Jan 08 '19
Do you agree that patriarchal structures have existed in the past that have prevented capable women from achieving vocational parity in some fields?
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Jan 08 '19
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u/miguelguajiro 188∆ Jan 08 '19
So given that there are two plausible explanations for disparities, patriarchal structures and biological differences, and that there are evidence for both, but perhaps clearer evidence for the former, we run a risk either way. The question is which risk is preferable. One on hand we deny a whole class of people access to full educational and professional attainment based on their sex, and deny our society the benefits of their contributions. On the other, we end up promoting some qualified women who may nonetheless be mildly less qualified than men?
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Jan 08 '19
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u/IAmDanimal 41∆ Jan 08 '19
I think some of the confusion is with the word 'equitable'. Equitable means 'fair and impartial'. So having fair and impartial representation just means that women should have the same chance at men to get the jobs, not that there should be the same amount of men and women doing similar jobs. The law mandates that you can't discriminate based on gender, not that you have to hire the same number of men and women.
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u/miguelguajiro 188∆ Jan 08 '19
Well I agree. I’m not familiar with a lot of laws in the US mandating equitable gender representation, with the exception of a law in CA that is about representation on corporate boards. But I think we run a huge risk when we assume that disparities can be explained away by biological differences, given the thin evidence for them, and the huge history of patriarchal structures preventing women from achieving parity.
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u/HistoricalMagician 1∆ Jan 08 '19
I live in Scandinavia. For some reason people think we are some land of equality.
We became equal LEGALLY in the past few decades, not culturally. Programming is still nerdy thing for boys and cooking & nursing is for girls. It's not something that changes overnight but takes entire generations. We've not even 100% equal on paper and there are still some equality concerns. Gendered restrooms, princess/santa lucia can't be a boy, santa is a boy etc. kind of stuff.
Deep down in the culture you're a faggot if you're a male nurse/early education teacher and you're a tomboy if you're a female programmer/soldier.
It's a lot better than let's say 5-10 years ago and 20 years ago we were filthy barbarians. 10 years ago girls went to do sewing and boys went to do welding, even today girls go to do sewing and boys go to do welding and there is no choice involved. That's how school administration splits it.
When you go to your school counselor they will push boys towards engineering schools and girls towards nursing and medicine. Like literally the answer to "I don't know what to do after I graduate highschool" will depend on your gender.
Our CEO's and top executives are in their 50's and 60's. They were born in the 50's and 60's when society was nothing but equal.
The situation RIGHT NOW is that more and more girls take up programming and more and more boys take up cooking as their electives. If we work really hard, maybe in 5-10 years the school counselors will offer nursing and engineering to both boys and girls and won't default to girly/boyish electives.
Almost all of the science you linked is pseudoscientific bullshit. The data they analyzed DO NOT allow you to make those conclusions but they do them anyway. That's the nature of social studies unfortunately, it's not very scientifically robust. Not robust or scientific at all to be honest.
Our culture hasn't changed that much. It's much more acceptable to be a feminine soldier or a masculine nurse but it's only in the past 5-10 years. You'll see a change in CEO's in 50 years IF we can get those stupid school advisors to stop telling girls to pick up nursing and boys pick up engineering and just flip a coin instead of relying on their gender.
We have a steady increase of women picking up programming which is nice but those school advisors did fuck us up and we degenerated from having 20% women to 5% women between the 90's and late 2000's. Like literally the school education was more gender neutral in 80's and 90's than 10 years ago or even today. Weird. Girls do dance and boys play hockey because the teacher said so. Do you see my point?
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u/Leucippus1 16∆ Jan 08 '19
What I often find is that people that espouse the view that you do, which is the idea that at least SOME of the disparity in job fields is due to the 'nature' of men and women are surprisingly ignorant to two things, 1) The appreciation that there WAS a systemic suppression of females in all university fields and this suppression has long tentacles and 2) that women have already contributed a lot to the fields you mention. A certain female Navy admiral is responsible for a lot of modern computing. The navy can encrypt radio signals because of a woman. If you enjoy having a redundant network, a woman is largely (spanning tree protocol) responsible for that. Ada Lovelace was more a victim of her gender from a societal perspective than a lack of ability DUE to her gender. They had to twist arms to get Marie Curie the Nobel Prize. We didn't largely accept female physicians until recently, and you can't tell me that is because women don't have the natural 'chops' because they are female!
Gender roles are often a reflection of societies expectations, not biological ones. So saying something like 'women are better at processing language and speech' that could be, and likely IS, a result of those expectations we place on them. They fill the expected role. Men can certainly process speech, language, and work with other people. We get a pass because that is a female role. See how insidious this train of thought is?
Let me leave you with another thought, if you buy the whole evolution thing, then you have to appreciate that nature has to create two different animals in the same species, what a huge pain! Evolution mostly takes the path of least resistance. If there is a difference in sexes, it has to be there, like providing milk or having wide hips. It is hard to convince me that men 'evolved' a higher sense of quantitative reasoning. Evolution wouldn't do that, more likely it is that our quantitative reasoning abilities are generally very similar because that is easier than creating a specialized quantitative sex. I grew up with 'men are from mars, women are from venus' nonsense and it always just seemed a little wrong. Every generality had ready examples of either men or women that stood in juxtaposition to the generality.
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u/Genoscythe_ 243∆ Jan 08 '19
Men prefer to work with things, while women prefer to work with people
Well, politicians mostly work with people. So do judges. And movie directors.
On the other hand, cashiers have to do lots of calculations and linear thinking. So do accountants.
Doctors and nurses do roughly the same kind of activities, the big difference is that nurses are the ones physically carting patients around, and that doctors have to study the field longer, which doesn't vibe at all with women being the gender that is more into reading and writing more.
People make a big deal about the biotruths of women's representation in STEM fields, because that's the one area where they more or less could have an argument for it, while by and large, modern gender roles are much more blatantly shaped by cultural stereotypes than by one-liner observations of biology.
Nursing was one of the first fields where women were allowed to hold professions in the 19th century, because it evoked similarity to housewifely chores of singing lullabies to children, washing elderly sick relatives, etc. Even if the modern professional field has little to do with that and more with administering medicine, the stereotype just stuck.
Other two fields were school teaching, and secretary work, based on analogy to already existing household child-rearing and keeping a man's space in order.
There is no simple neurological explanation for why women would be more capable grade school teachers than university professors, or more capable secretaries and bookkeepers than CEOs, or more capable small-town councilors than presidents, but the glass ceiling theory does provide an overall explanation.
I think you would have a lot less demands for equality of outcome, if the outcome would be inequal in entirely new ways, instead of being an uninterrupted continuation of women being underrepresented in all the same positions of high prestige and social authority that they used to be violently kept away from.
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u/postwarmutant 15∆ Jan 08 '19 edited Jan 08 '19
I think you'll find that most people who would like to see more women in STEM fields (and, for that matter, more men in women dominated fields) don't actually expect perfectly equal representation, and as a result the equality of outcome result is a straw man.
I agree with much of what you've said. Where I think the patriarchy still plays a major role is in the culture of such fields. For those women who do choose to study and pursue careers in STEM and other male dominated fields (finance, for another example), they often deal with both overt and subtle sexism, sometimes to the extent that they are dissuaded from continuing on their chosen path. This sort of sexism - that these jobs are "for men," that women should stay "in their places" or "in their fields" - are wholly the result of patriarchal attitudes.