Talk:Sex differences in human physiology

This article was nominated for deletion on 11 August 2005. The result of the discussion was no consensus.

I haven't been able to find a mention anywhere of the phrase "gender gap inversion." Is that an established phrase, as suggested in the article? Joyous 00:27, Jun 3, 2004 (UTC)

Edits for POV, stereotypes

I built on this article to explain the concept of a Gender gap while trying to approach more NPOV writing. Also, I perceived that some of the explanation and examples confused stereotypes (popular beliefs) with actual gaps. I think actual gaps are under discussion here.

Some of the specific changes I made were:

Eliding neologisms such as "gender gap inversion," "pro-male gender gap" and its counterpart. I couldn't find these terms used as such in Google, and the article content doesn't suffer without them.
Removed some unsubstantiated examples that were particularly questionable. They could be added back with proper substantiation.
Removed statement about "racial gap" and lifespan. It may be true but it doesn't add to understanding of the article's subject.

Really, many of the remaining examples require substantiation as well, but I didn't want to gut the article. Demi ^T/_{C 09:09, 2005 Mar 28 (UTC)}

"An average man is taller than an average woman" - the filing of this strikes me as a POV issue. I can see people arguing that there are also benefits to being short. -- Smjg 17:57, 10 July 2005 (UTC)[reply]

"Some gender gaps favoring females are opposed by masculists." This seems a totally random POV comment. A masculist isn't someone who wants men to come first in everything. It's someone who favours traditional gender roles. As such, a masculist can, in theory, support or oppose individual gender gaps favouring male or female alike. OTOH, feminists are more likely to oppose gender gaps either way.... -- Smjg 14:34, 8 August 2005 (UTC)[reply]

You linked to masculists but didn't read the article. I'm a masculist, and I certainly don't favour traditional gender roles. I oppose them. For example, I don't think that it's always in a child's best interest to stay with their mother. Mullet 22:40, 19 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]

On reading that page a bit more, I'm actually rather confused at what masculism means. Can you find or think of a more accurate dictionary definition than the only one I've found? -- Smjg 14:42, 8 November 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Gender gap in aging

Is there a gender gap in aging? According to some sources, men age faster than women. Tedius Zanarukando 25 Apr 2005, 23:49 (EST).

Any relation to "Women live slightly longer than men in most countries"? -- Smjg 17:57, 10 July 2005 (UTC)[reply]

That may be possible. Aging may be a sign of being near the current maximum lifespan. It seems that aging tells how long the person may live. Decimus Tedius Regio Zanarukando 05:17, 18 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

A few oddities

"Women are less likely to be in prison." Does this mean that women are less likely to be commit the crimes of relevance, or that imprisonment is less often the punishment of choice towards women? This needs to be clarified.

"Most sports are traditionally male." Is this "favoring neither males nor females" because there is nothing to stop females participating in sport if they want to? There remain disparities both ways nonetheless. Firstly that male sport gets an order of magnitude more media coverage than female sport, and so females are left out in this respect. OTOH I imagine that on average, girls aren't alienated for not being into sport to the same extent as boys are - how true is this? -- Smjg 17:57, 10 July 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Meanwhile, the way both this and "Video games are a traditionally male hobby" are written, they are pure stereotypes, so I think I'm going to remove them unless someone can come up with a better rewrite. -- Smjg 12:44, 11 July 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Moreover, the article doesn't touch on the differences between male and female clothing. I can think of a few things that can be said about this - I'll probably redress (no pun intended) this balance over the next few days. -- Smjg 17:57, 10 July 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Here's what I had in mind:

Male clothes are often better equipped with pockets.
Males are typically allowed to bare their chests in public.
A wider range of clothing styles is available for females, including both skirts and dresses and different kinds of tops.
Even within this difference, the female sections of clothing catalogues seemingly tend to be more comprehensive than the male sections. (In my time, finding some of the clothes I really like has proven tricky....)
Office dress codes are sometimes less strict for women, even to the effect of allowing female employees to dress more casually than their male counterparts.
Clothing for formal occasions also exhibits more variety on the female side, with males often expected to wear a suit whereas females may choose to wear something more suitable in warm weather.

What do people think? I'm also not sure if this has more Western bias than is desirable.... -- Smjg 12:44, 11 July 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Article Contains Lies

At the end of this article, the "80% of women...Home Shopping Network..." bullet point is completely biased, and I'm sure there are a few other biased points in it. In my opinion, this article needs to be completely redone, as it consists merely of a few seemingly random differences between male and female social status that are of little importance regarding anything.--Life 22:51, 28 July 2005 (EST)

Hi Life, the article may be merely a list of sometimes-trivial facts, but I don't think an NPOV tag is what we want, as the points seem to be from a NPOV, though they describe biases that favour one of the sexes. The Home Shopping Network statistic should have been added into the article along with a reference, but I don't see how it's biased. Cheers, Nectarflowed ^T 02:57, 29 July 2005 (UTC)[reply]

I've removed "80% of women admit to voting for the favorite candidate of the Home Shopping Network in state and national elections", because it's obviously wrong. (I'm sure no one asked 80% of american women that question, let alone 80% of women). Now if somebody did a study and arrived at this estimate, please cite them and also consider whether the source deserves citing. --Glimz 09:17, July 29, 2005 (UTC)

Additions by Tedius

"In Eastern society, parents prefer to raise sons."
"Male school students are less likely to complain about dress codes."
"Men wait longer to marry than women."

Firstly, the way these are written, they seem to an extent to be tarring all members of the respective groups with the same brush. Secondly, what's your evidence?

And by the third, do you mean longer after birth, getting together, getting engaged or what? It may be true that in most marriages, the husband is older than the wife. However, since (in most countries) every marriage involves both sexes, this cannot logically be a matter of how long they wait. Couples get together, get engaged, and then get married at the same time. On this basis, the only way that husbands can be older is if men tend to choose future wives who are younger than themselves, or women tend to choose future husbands who are older. Quite a different concept from waiting longer to marry. -- Smjg 10:22, 28 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]

I don't think the following statistic should be under the 'gender gaps favouring women' subtitle: "By 2010, women are expected to control $1 trillion of the US's wealth through their husbands - BusinessWeek and Gallup." The wealth spoken of is in the hands of both the husband and the wife. I don't even think that this point addresses or identifies a gender gap at all. It certainly doesn't illuminate a fact of one gender's financial advantage over the other's. If anything, it could be re-worded and included in the opposite section, as it would seem women only have access to this money through men, while men would be the gender with primary access. The quality of this article does seem a little sub-par. 65.95.25.34 07:04, 1 December 2005 (UTC)nic[reply]

Merge with wage gap

I think this article should be merged with the Wage Gap... most talk about the gender gap i've seen is concentrated on the labour market. Bringing wage gap into gender gap makes alot of sense. A few small bits of the wage_gap section that isn't to do with gender can be moved to economic inequality thoughts? --kodemizer, december 2nd 2005

merge from economic inequality / gender descrimination

In economic inequality there contains a section under causes -> descrimination -> gender that is not nessarily the best writen peice, but at the same time deals with subject matter than has more to do with the gender gap than with general economic inequality per se.. The economic inequality peice should still have a short description, but the main peice should live here.. thoughts? ---Kodemizer, december 2, 2005

Renaming article to gender differences

This article is not about the gender gap, it is about gender differences. Gender gap generally refers to the systemic differences in the outcomes that men and women achieve in the labor market. I think this is self evident enough for me to justify just going ahead and changing it... --kodemizer, december 3rd 2005.. if you disagree, sorry to offend..

Sex versus Gender

There seems to be quite a mix between differences based on gender (differences due to society), and those based on physical differences between the sexes. Should these be separated out and each grouped together in some way? Admittedly there are some where it's not clear whether the difference is due to sex or gender, but on the other hand it seems perhaps odd lumping "men have more pockets in their clothes" with "men have testosterone". Alternatively the article could simply be changed to clarify it's talking about differences based on biological sex and gender. What do others think? Mdwh 23:04, 20 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Seriousness?

I thought this article was intended to be serious, but I would never link to an article that explains things such as "Men's clothing have pockets".... / Fred-Chess 15:28, 23 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

It seems to be a practical distinction to me. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.215.244.155 (talk • contribs) 15:10, 26 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Lots of edits: hope this is an improvement

Ok, I decided to “be bold” and did some reorganization and deletion:

Added a paragraph about nature versus nurture and average versus individual cases.
Deleted the item about pockets (POV: who says more pockets is an advantage? Maybe it’s a disadvantage, because you can never remember where you put your wallet!)
Added item about men’s clothing being more comfortable (reasonably non-controversial).
Added items relating to Janet Hyde’s meta-analysis of gender difference studies.
Added items about David Buss’s study on mate selection.
Added items about intelligence and a link to the “sex and intelligence” article.
Added item about the “glass ceiling” and relative levels of wealth.
Added item about men being incarcerated more than women. It is a fact that men make up a higher percentage of the prison population in most (all?) countries. Speculating about the reasons may be POV, but stating the numbers is not.
Added item about men being more likely victims of violent crime (other than rape).
Deleted the item about eostregen providing an advantage in making hair healthy and skin less wrinkled. I could find no sources to back this up. Some suggest that women are disadvantaged when it comes to skin aging because they have less collagen. This may be masked by women using moisturizers and other skin care products more than men. Anyway, if someone has facts and can back them up, they can put the item back in.
Deleted the item about women controlling wealth through their husbands (hard to see how this provides a comparative advantage for women).
Condensed the items on women’s clothing variety to a single item (all comes down to the same point: more variety).
Removed removed the item about women having fewer mental health problems, which is simply untrue. Added items from the WHO report on gender and mental health (roughly similar levels between men and women, althought specific problems such as depression and alcoholism are more common in one gender or another).
Added items about illiteracy and education.
Removed the sentence about affirmative action in relation to college numbers. This suggests that the increase in female numbers is mainly due to affirmative action, which is POV (other countries have had similar increases without affirmative action). Added information about college attendance in UK and Iran to make the item less US-specific.
After “there were more women than men who were doctors and lawyers” added “while there were more men who were engineers”.
Added a section about similarities between the sexes (important not to forget there are significant similarities).
Reorganized the lists a bit to group related items.
Added footnotes.

I think this is an important area but we need to avoid non-verifiable claims. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 87.192.248.235 (talk • contribs) 11:10, 12 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Life expectancy in Muslim countries

Women live longer than men in most countries (a notable exception is Afghanistan and other Muslim countries).

The way this reads, it suggests that men live longer than women in all Muslim countries, which is not true (see WHO countries list and check the figures for Indonesia and Egypt, for example). I changed this to include just Afghanistan and Pakistan. You can put in other examples if you can want (and can verify them). — Preceding unsigned comment added by 87.192.248.235 (talk • contribs) 15:10, 18 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Online Dating

I removed the following:

"There are more men than women in online dating websites. In general 60% of members are male compared to 40% female. Consequently males often find it very hard to solicit responses whereas females are usually inundated with emails from suitors."

This is inaccurate and oversimplified, with no supporting citations. To the best of my knowledge and experience, gender ratios vary greatly depending on the nature of the dating website. Sites which focus on sex and short-term flings (like AdultFriendFinder) have many times more men than women, while websites that focus on marriage and long-term commitment, like Eharmony, have significantly more women than men. Furthermore, the ratio also varies greatly according to age, with men outnumbering women in the 18-30 age range, and women outnumbering men in the over 40 age group. Thus, IMHO, there is no significant clear-cut gap favouring either gender here. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 88.152.18.244 (talk • contribs) 00:22, 4 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

---

I removed the sentence: "Obviously, those odds are stacked strongly in favor of the women."

This is POV. If it's that obvious, let the figures speak for themselves!

Also, it's not that "obvious" that the odds are stacked in favor of a woman looking for a relationship on line. If the bulk of emails are from men looking for casual sex, they aren't going to help her. It may be that the odds are in favor of young women looking for hookups, but older men looking for long-term partners may have a better choice than women in the same situation. Not that different from "offline" dating, really. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 194.39.131.40 (talk • contribs) 09:41, 6 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

---

I just did a quick survey of personal ads on new york craigslist. I found on one day there was 200 ads by women looking for men and 900 ads by men looking for women. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 66.65.122.117 (talk • contribs) 14:41, 6 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

---

There seems to be some controversy over whether dating tendencies are relevant to Gender differences. I believe they are quite relevant. Americans spent half a billion dollars on internet dating [1]. Hypothetically if one wanted to start an online dating website, one's market research would involve the demographics and trends. Its common knowledge in the online industry that the key to financial success of any internet dating site is maintaining a core level of female subscribers particularly in the 18-30 range. With that done the men will easily follow. Many sites often offer discounts and incentives to keep the female clientelle. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Chifumbe (talk • contribs) 10:38, 10 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Only for humans, right?

Just got here, from gender. Am I right in assuming that the present article talks only about humans? In that case it should say so. Arbor 07:33, 18 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Occupational deaths

Additionally, 92% of occupational deaths occur among men.

Do you have a source for this? I don't doubt it (far more men work in firefighting, fishing, construction work, and other risky jobs). But see Wikipedia:Verifiability. Also, is this a worldwide figure or specific to one country or region?--Fionah 08:11, 26 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Found a ref myself and added it (I love google) :)--Fionah 09:10, 27 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]

POV of this article

I'm not sure what the purpose of this article is. It seems to be making a thinly veiled argument that men and women are essentially the same; and that they only differ in the aggregate, statistically. One one one, chances are, a man and a woman are likely to be equal in any significant way.

Perhaps the article point of view hinges on how "equal" (or "equality") is defined. Or maybe it simply was intended to reflect the point of view that all differences between men and women (other than average physical disparities) are the result of upbringing, culture, education, religion, and so on.

I changed the intro accordingly. If the change is reverted, that will tell me something (tacitly), but I'd much rather have explicit discussion. --Uncle Ed 14:57, 23 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I think it’s pretty NPOV on the causes: “The existence of a gender difference does not identify whether the trait is due to nature or environment.” There’s a brief subsection on Possible causes under Psychology, which gives equal weight to nature and nurture arguments. But other than that the rest of the article seems to present facts and figures without reference to why these differences may exist.

There is a lot of “on average” and “generally”, but there are v few differences (apart from reproduction as you rightly point out) that will hold for every single man and every single woman on earth. There are tall women, 100-year-old men, male teachers, female engineers, and husbands younger than their wives. This doesn’t mean the general rule is wrong, but it would be equally wrong to say all men are taller, all women live longer, etc.

I like the changes to the intro, BTW. It reads much clearer now. Fionah 06:41, 24 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Planets and people

"When it comes to comforting, the Mars-Venus concept is not only wrong, but harmful," MacGeorge says. "For the most part, men and women use, and strongly prefer, the same ways of comforting others – listening, sympathizing and giving thoughtful advice. Yet books like John Gray's 'Men are From Mars and Women are From Venus' and Deborah Tannen's 'You Just Don't Understand' tell men that being masculine means dismissing feelings and downplaying problems. That isn't what most men do, and it isn't good for either men or women."

I read both books cited. I did not see anything in them telling men to dismiss feelings or downplay problems. Quite the contrary: for example, Gray says that mean would be wise to show concern about feelings, particularly with women.

The news article also contradictis itself. First it cites MacGeorge as concluding that there is no significant difference between men and women (a variance less than 5% in science is generally considered too insignificant to warrant further study). Then it asks the reader, "So, where do gender differences come from?" [2]

Sounds like MacGeorge dislikes "Man Are From Mars" for some reason other than what the news article is telling us. Is she an ideological feminist, or what?

Unlike Tannen, who based her findings on actual conversations which she recorded and sometimes videotaped, MacGeorge merely asked people what their preferences were. This is like asking people at work whether they take drugs, rather than testing their blood or urine. --Uncle Ed 17:11, 23 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Here's what MacGeorge actually opposes - I hadn't read all the way down:

the notion that men and women communicate in such different ways that they should be regarded as members of different communication cultures or speech communities.

Neither Tannen nor Gray makes this claim, although Gray's metaphor can be misleading to those who haven't read his book. Neither author has said that male-female differences dwarf inter-cultural differences, such as the East-West divide. They are more like Miss Manners (especialy Gray), giving advice on getting along better within one's culture. --Uncle Ed 17:16, 23 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I'm not sure what this has to do with the Gender Differences article, which doesn't mention John Gray at all (his book is pop psychology, not research). AFAIK, there is no clear consensus at the moment about gender differences in language use, so the article reflects this. In The Blank Slate, Steven Pinker (definitely not an "ideological feminist") claims that men and women use language in much the same way. Fionah 06:54, 24 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Agreed: John Gray is not a research psychologist, but an practicing therapist (or showman?) and popular author. He has no "findings" to offer the scientific community. His only interest to our readers is what he declares to be so. That is, he's stating his point of view, like a politician or movie reviewer giving an opinion.

I'd like to see more in Wikipedia about how (whether?) men and women communicate differently. Do women say "We need to talk" more than men do? Are men more likely to drive around trying find a route on their own, while women are more likely to stop and ask directions? or is this just anecdotal, etc.

And what can we tell about "intrinsic differences" between the sexes, from the fact that there are different mixes of men and women in some occupations (in the US, anyway)? Are those who claim "men and women are essentially the same, there is no such thing as masculinity and femininity as innate aspects" correct? Or are those who claim the opposite, that men are "meant to be masculine" and "women are meant to be feminine" correct? (And how the heck are we supposed to get answers to these questions and then present them in accordance with NPOV policy at Wikipedia?)

Anyway, I'd like to start with a review of studies about language use, particularly in conversations spoken aloud. Tannen is the only researcher whose books I've read. She says there are significant differences. I read a news article about another researcher who disagreed with Gray, but Gray is not a resercher. And "self-reporting" is subject to bias: subjects tend to tell the interviewer what she wants to hear, perhaps. So where do we go from here? --Uncle Ed 14:26, 25 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Oh, I was hasty again. I didn't read this about various proposed causes of gender differences. Thanks for putting that in! --Uncle Ed 14:29, 25 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Do you think I covered all relevant viewpoints? I tried to keep it brief because the viewpoints themselves are discussed on other pages. I agree it is difficult to keep NPOV on this issue but saying "feminists say X" and "evolutionary psychologists say Y" gets around it.

Maybe you could do an article on Please Understand Me and link to it here? 10:27, 26 May 2006 (UTC)

Communication

On average, women speak 7,000 words per day, compared to 2,000 words for men.

Is there a source for this? I googled for “women 7000 words per day”, but all I found were blogs and unverified lists of factoids. Note: I am NOT saying this is untrue, I am saying that it needs to be verified.

Also, the statement could do with some context. Where was the study done? (e.g. was if in North America, Europe, Asia?) What language was spoken? (e.g. German speakers probably speak fewer words per day, what with all those long compounded words. And Spanish speakers may talk faster and so fit in more words per day.) What age were the participants? What was the situation? (See Tannen’s point about public situations vs home.)Fionah 10:27, 26 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Actually, it turns out the number was pulled out of thin air (or at least out of some self-help book). Most studies find either that men and women speak the same average number of words, or that men speak slightly more! See Sex-Linked Lexical Budgets on the Language Log. Fionah 10:21, 24 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Income disparity

Most of the intro for Economics probably belongs in the Income disparity article. I propose the following:

In many countries, there is a gender income gap which favors males in the labor market. For example, the median salary for U.S. women is 76% of that of U.S. men. However, a study found that U.S. women earn 98 percent of what men do when controlled for experience, education, and number of years on the job. See income disparity.

And then move the other information to income disparity or Male-female income disparity in the USA. For an example of something similar, see the Intelligence section on this page, where there is just a summary of the main points with detailed discussion on the sex and intelligence page.Fionah 10:27, 26 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Orgasm

"# Men's orgasm is essential for reproduction whereas female orgasm does not have any obvious function other than to be pleasurable."

I'm removing this, as it isn't (productive ejaculation can be had without orgasm, unless I truly misunderstand what orgasm is; it seems likely that the first is the only thing necessary for reproduction). Just found a reference. 24.16.251.40 19:54, 8 June 2006 (UTC) (Formerly 24.22.227.53)[reply]

How can one define a woman's orgasm to be typically more intense? Is that solely based on muscular contraction measurement, or upon subjective measurements of "pleasure"?

It also lasts considerably longer, and they can multi TrevorLSciAct 22:41, 3 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]

sex and intelligence

I removed the following from the "sex and intelligence" section:

In a study by C Davison Ankney from the University of Western Ontario, Ankney found that men on average, have a 100-gram advantage over women in brain weight. A study done in Denmark in the late 1990's documented that men have about 15 per cent more neurons than women. Other studies published showing that men have an advantage of 4 to 5 IQ points over women by early adulthood.^[1]

The reason is that this section is meant to be a summary of the current evidence from large scale studies of IQ and sex. Currently, most large scale replicated studies show no significant difference between average overall IQ scores of men and women. A few studies show some advantage for males, but these are discussed in the main "Sex and Intelligence" article.

The referenced study seems flawed because it focuses on SAT scores. Very low IQ people would not take SATs. Since males are overrepresented at the extreme ends of the bell curve (v low and v high IQs), this would eliminate the men who would bring the average down (v low IQs) while keeping the men who would bring the average up (v high IQs). Fewer women would be eliminated (since fewer would be in the low IQ group) but since they are clustered more around the mean they would not contain so many v high IQs to pull up their average.

Also, the relationship between brain weight and intelligence is not that clear-cut: men weigh more than women overall and so would be expected to have larger brains.

Fionah 09:07, 12 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I think that this should be reintroduced to the article. There is another study, this one by Manchester University, that indicates that there is a 5 point discrepancy, which begins at puberty:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/education/4183166.stm

If it is not reintroduced to the article, then the existence of such studies should at the very least be mentioned. Shining Arcanine 03:20, 25 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Maybe introduce it into the main sex and intelligence article? My question would be whether this study included people at all levels of IQ, including low IQs. Because of men's greater variability, if you cut out people below a certain level you will skew the average. Fionah 08:32, 26 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

waist hip ratio

The literature on the subject of waist to hip ratio seems to make use of a unique method of denoting such a ratio by using a single decimal number like 0.7 for women and 0.9 for men as a 'ratio'. This is confusing since it really should be; 0.7:1 (the waist is 70% the circumference of the hips) for women and 0.9:1 (the waist is 90% the circumference of the hips) for men.

A ratio is the differential relationship between two quantities, so a ratio with a greater difference should be thought of as a greater ratio. However, in the case of WHR, the 'greater' WHR number is actually a smaller ratio (in normal terminology.) It really should be described as women having a greater WHR than men, but that would appear to conflict with the fact that the number 0.7 is smaller than the number 0.9, even though both numbers represent only half of their respective ratios.

I personally find this confusing since it goes against any other use of the term 'ratio' that I've seen. But it seems to be the norm for this particular ratio, probably because it is easier for the general public to handle a single number when reading diet books and trying to improve their WHR.

Oh well...

Doing the same thing over and over, expecting a different result. 10:51, 3 December 2006 (UTC) Nanisani[reply]

Agree it's confusing! That's why i added "that is, their waists are smaller by comparison with their hips". However, this has been removed as "redundancy". If it clears up confusion, i don't think it's redundant. Actually, to make it clearer, maybe we should have something like "Women have smaller waists in comparison to their hips (see waist-hip ratio)". Fionah 10:12, 4 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Women "somewhat" or "far" happier?

DarkSenel on 00:34, 19 April 2007 changed "Overall, women claim to be somewhat happier than men with their lives" to "Overall, women claim to be far happier than men with their lives". However, from the the Pew study that is used as a reference [3]: "Women are somewhat happier than men with their lives overall, according to 38,000 interviews in 44 countries conducted by the Pew Research Center for the Pew Global Attitudes Survey... Women give their lives a better rating in 29 of 44 countries surveyed. In some countries the differences between genders is very small and in others it is quite significant. Women's greater satisfaction with life is pervasive in many of the less-developed regions of the world: in 7 of the 8 countries surveyed in Asia, 6 of the 8 nations in Latin America and all 5 nations in east and southern Africa. In particular, women are much happier than men in Japan, India, the Philippines, Pakistan and Argentina. In contrast, men and women in Western Europe and Canada are quite similar in the way they judge their lives." This indicates that "far happier" is an exaggeration. It should be simply "Overall, women claim to be happier than men with their lives" or "Overall, women claim to be happier than men with their lives in 29 out of 44 countries". This gives a much better summary of what the study actually found. Fionah 08:39, 19 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Images of female and male sexual characteristics...

I just wanted to discuss the two images for "Female Sex Characteristics" and "Male Sex Characteristics" in the "Physical differences" section. Firstly the labels are different sizes in each image when scaled to the same size, with the female images labels nearly impossible to read without clickling on it.

Secondly, I'm not sure these are the two best images to use to illustrate the differences in sex characteristics. I'm going to try to be as delicate as possible here so that I don't offend peoples' sensibilities.

Starting with the female image; it is lacking any body hair, which is an important secondary sexual characteristic (this is clearly labelled on the male image). Omitting it; regardless of today's cultural tastes, is a major omission for an encyclopaedia. Also in the photograph the model is in a rather bizarre pose; she looks a little confused and out of place, almost as if shes wondering whats going on. The labels are also a little bizarre and this image used on any other page would be confusing. For example; there is a label pointing to the shoulders that just says "shoulders". Thats not very useful; perhaps "narrower shoulders" etc would be more useful; something displaying a little comparative anatomy and reflecting the points raised in the text.

The male figure shares a number of the same issues. However one extra major issue is the setting; a naked man standing in a field. I'm sure it's all very artistic but it's not very necessary, and it makes it look odd when coupled with the woman's picture with her standing on a white background (with a strange pose). Also the fact the man has tattoos may be confusing to some readers; I doubt people would think tattoos are a secondary sexual characteristic of the male but you can never be too careful!

When studying anatomy and displaying it in textbooks; persons are usually displayed in the "anatomical position"; this is standing straight, facing forward, with the arms by the persons side and the palms also facing forward. Perhaps a photograph or an illustration of a naked man and woman in the anatomical position would be more appropriate.

Finally there is a very artistic but ultimately pointless image of a man, pregnant woman and child. As nice as it is; it add little more than decoration to the page and at the very least should probably moved elsewhere so that the text is easier to read.

What do people think? Anyone know of some better images that could be adapted for purpose? --DomUK 21:01, 19 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]

pov tag (sex differences are NOT gender differences)

This article has sections on sex differences that seem to speak to the title of the article. However it also has sections relating to gender-feminist propaganda about gender-differences that are both POV and have nothing to do with sex differences. This confusion is what feminists have been banking on for political power plays as they pervert and the meaning of both terms. I added a pov tag here until we take 'gender' out of this article and focus on sex differences alone. Sex is a biological or medical determined characteristic. Gender which might include sex is much more complicated. To confuse sex and gender as is being done so shamelessly in the mass media today is how feminista-feminists rape the language for their ideological and political agendas. Thus the pov tag on the article. Please spare us another Assault on Reason here.

I also pov tagged the Economics section for the shameless study of so-called 'sex' differences the here. To claim the sex (or gender!) CAUSES social, political or economic differences is an assault on reason too. Personal choice, personal competence/incompetence and a host of other factors play into these effects. Please remove the gender-feminist propaganda from this article and focus us on legitimate sex differences as is done so well in the top of the article.

To be at all credible, this article needs to study sex differences that are directly associated to sex rather than making the ludricous leap to include differences attributable to gender, culture, preference, and/or a host of other associated causes that often overlap. As the definition clearly states: A sex difference is a distinction of biological and/or physiological characteristics typically associated with either males or females of a species in general. There are no socio-political distinctions in this definition. 128.111.95.45 00:22, 28 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]

First off, please assume good faith. The editors of this article are not necessarily "feminista-feminists" intent on pushing their "propaganda". Your comment was a little unclear, but I'm assuming you object to the inclusion of things like "clothing" and "consumer behaviour" in this article, as they are more closely related to gender and culture than to biological sex. However, these sections focus on observable differences between sexes (without claiming either that they are determined by biological differences between men and women, or that they are down to culture). Perhaps these sections are irrelevant to the topic, but I don't see how they are POV. Cowpepper 12:45, 28 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]

No-one's been back to discuss this in two weeks, so I'm removing the POV tags. Cowpepper 15:17, 11 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I must agree completely. The two images are inconsistent with one another. The images should be deleted without a replacement.

^ J Philippe Rushton (2006) University of Western Ontario

[1] J Philippe Rushton (2006) University of Western Ontario

[1]