Talk:Sex differences in human physiology

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.

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)

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)

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)

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

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)

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 [1]: "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)

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)

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)

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)

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)

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

"Techincally [sic], women tend to shop more than men."

What is this supposed to mean?

• they spend more money in an average year?
• they spend more money in an average shopping trip?
• they spend more money in an average visit to one shop?
• they acquire a greater mass of shopping in <one of the above>?
• they spend more time shopping in <one of the above>?
• they make more shopping trips in an average year?
• they make more visits to individual shops in an average year?
• they visit a wider variety of shops?
• they visit a wider variety of kinds of shops?
• something else entirely?

-- Smjg 15:08, 28 July 2007 (UTC)

split article

article is split into sex and gender differences. gender is related to sociology and sex related to biology. see 2 sections(pov comment) above for details Lara_bran 05:59, 29 July 2007 (UTC)

However for every male that sires two offspring, another male fails to sire an offspring.[5].

I'm a new poster, but AFAITC this can't be true. And yes, I know, this is original research, and not my field, but it's also basic math. If the population size is 60 with 30 males and 30 females, then every man could have a mate and sire 2 offspring, resulting in the next generation having 60. If 15 males each sire [b]four[/b] offspring then the other 15 wouldn't sire any assuming the next gen is 60. Tall Dan 16:32, 29 July 2007 (UTC)

This depends very much on culture.

There's nothing wrong with the statement, mathematically, though. It does not say that half of males sire 2 while the other half sire none. It simply says that, if a male sires 2, then some other male will sire none. For example, if you had 5 males, one could sire 2, 3 would then sire one, and the remaining one would sire none.

In any case, it's just an average and therefore two, one, and zero is not the actual breakdown, as you know. In some families, there may be a dozen children, while in others there are none.--BThetford (talk) 23:22, 20 July 2008 (UTC)

Other health differences

It is mistakenly said that women are longer in the torso (shorter legged)than men. This is not true. Women do have a lower center of gravity, but their legs are longer relative to torso length as compared to men. Weight is in the hips. Men carry more weight in the shoulder and torso area. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 141.161.230.125 (talk • contribs)

Source?--BThetford (talk) 23:18, 20 July 2008 (UTC)

Cleanup tag - Removed 27 Oct, 2008

Article needs cleanup. Content needs to be rearranged. Notes section has redundant entries, needs removals. Lara_bran 04:01, 14 August 2007 (UTC)

I think this has largely been taken care of, now, no? Can we remove the banner yet?--BThetford (talk) 23:17, 20 July 2008 (UTC)

Alright, fixed. I cleaned up all the notes, and made them consistently formatted in the usual wikipedia style. View my edit. I had to remove about 30 websites that were mentioned as a reference, but had no citation in the text. I removed all of them rather than try to find their point and insert it back into the article. Hovever, a lot of the information was not of high value, in my opinion, and involved things like incarceration rates, online dating, and intelligence.

As a result of my copy-editing, i have removed the cleanup template, which is appropriate, i think. (The objection is so old, it should be raised again if there is a current problem). —fudoreaper (talk) 05:39, 27 October 2008 (UTC)

Height

I would apprieciate- and I think others would too- more info on height differencial- what the statistics are and how they might vary from place to place or time to time.

IceDragon64 22:41, 15 August 2007 (UTC)

Fiction more worthy than facts, celebrities more than scientists

"Biological text books state that humans have a high degree of sexual dimorphism, but closer study by science fiction writer David Brin (2004) has shown that this is not the case.[Full citation needed] Brin also published a popular essay, 'Neoteny: A Paleo-Anthropological Speculation', in 1996." So the opinions of a science fiction writer should overrule that of scientists? Would anyone agree that this should be deleted? 80.0.130.44 (talk) 23:17, 30 January 2008 (UTC)

Depends, I mean writing science fiction doesn't preclude you from making a thorough literature review for example. A citation would be necessary to make this kind of judgement. Could this whole notion of "closer study" be derived from the following sentence in the mentioned essay 'Neoteny: A Paleo-Anthropological Speculation'?

"Let me also emphasize that Homo sapiens appears less riven by sexual dimorphism than most species, [..]"

If that's the case one should certainly look for the source Brin relies on for this statement.

Also, "biological text books" is much to general I'm convinced that they vary in their presentation of the topic. --88.72.201.11 (talk) 16:30, 2 June 2008 (UTC)

Removing Sentence

I am removing the sentence that sais "women give birth to babies; men do not."This sentence is sexist and unnecessary. That sentence implies that men are worthless and nothing. Keep adding that sentence and I will keep on deleting it.SoundBlast (talk) 00:42, 15 February 2008 (UTC)

How can stating a biological fact be sexist? --88.72.201.11 (talk) 16:30, 2 June 2008 (UTC)

Not only that, but the article is ENTIRELY about differences between the sexes. Simply stating that one does something the other does not makes no value statement at all.

There are plenty of statements about men in there, too, such as having larger, denser bones. Does that mean women are weak and worthless? Absolutely not.--BThetford (talk) 23:16, 20 July 2008 (UTC)

It only implies that men are worthless IF you believe that someone is worthless if they don't give birth. THAT belief might be sexist ... but the statement "women give birth to babies; men do not." is just a biological observation and contains no value judgment.

Hoping To Help (talk) 12:27, 15 November 2008 (UTC)

Skin

It is obvious that women can stand the cold better but I read somewhere that men can stand the heat better, because of their slightly thicker skin. I also read that women have a higher chance of getting skin cancer because of their thinner skin, which the sun penetrates easier.

I think that should be added. SoundBlast (talk) 01:30, 20 March 2008 (UTC)

---

What's obvious is that you have no idea what you're talking about. Why would women stand the cold better? Why would thicker skin allow men to stand the heat better? Men can stand the cold better because of:

1. Thicker skin; 2. More muscle mass = more calories burned = more heat —Preceding unsigned comment added by Dnx-x1 (talk • contribs) 23:37, 26 January 2009 (UTC)

Additionally, men on average are larger which means they have proportionally less surface area compared to mass. So a smaller proportion of a man's body is exposed to the outside. Which contributes to men having a harder time cooling themselves.Hoping To Help (talk) 11:11, 2 April 2009 (UTC)

reaction time

Maybe it should be mentioned, thet men have a higher average reaction time then women. The logical explanation for this is that because in acient times hunting and figthting was primarly a task for men. --Qaywsxedc (talk) 17:59, 21 June 2008 (UTC)

You mean lower average reaction time, and I assume you're talking about reaction time as in the time between a visual stimulus and taking action on that stimulus. Anyway, the assumptions about the reasons for this sort of thing being related to hunting tend not to hold up very well, if you ask modern sociologists.--BThetford (talk) 23:13, 20 July 2008 (UTC)

Reproduction

It says mistakenly that women "produce" one egg per month. This is not true, they are born with a finite amount of embryos. I'm not sure how to edit this.

Long hair on the head is in NO WAY a secondary sex characteristic!

You know, if the pictures were about fully clothed little girls, and the gender would be hard to determine by the look, something like that is ok. But we see naked men and naked women who are really easy to recognize as such. This article is about primary and secondary sex differences. Adding "characteristics" such as long hair is only confuaing. There is no real scientific agreement about how determined "female" and "male" behaviour is by the physical gender. But we know for sure, there`s no genetic impulse to cut hair or let it grow, nor an evolutionary advantage. In some cultures, both men and women let their hair grow, in others, both cut it down, there were/ are even cultures where men wear their hair long and women short! As with animals like lions, or peacocks, for many animals males, hardly females, have some kinds of manes or colourful feathers. Including humans, e.g. the male beard. Head hair grows down lifelong unless it`s cut. Just as simple.

Hell, why not give the women also a bow, a pink skirt, petticoats, à Barbie doll, and some food to cook and dishes to wash, so we can clearly not doubt they`re female?!

For christ`s sake, they`re naked, we can see doubtless what gender they are, so why even use these clishees??

That`s not what this page is about, even if there are certain tendencies in behaviour, if letting hair grow was one of them we`d see it in other cultures.

Hell, if children red this...

This is a scientific article, and the one about sexism is another one.

Why didn`t they use a man and a woman, looking rather alike, same hairstyle, same hair colour, similiar faces etc., and besides that they still are recognizable as men and women.

It`s not just predujuce, it`s UNNESSECARRY! —Preceding unsigned comment added by 91.62.9.129 (talk) 15:47, 4 July 2008 (UTC)

It's Wikipedia. If you don't like it, change it. Personally, I don't think its a big enough deal to come up with a new graphic. But if you do, I doubt anyone will care enough to change it back, either. Nerrolken (talk) 07:26, 6 October 2009 (UTC)

You know... If you don't like the pictures used, you could always change it to pictures you feel are more appropriate. Agreed that gender stereotypes based on very western culture is bad for an article about physiology, of course, but complaining about it doesn't help much.--BThetford (talk) 23:09, 20 July 2008 (UTC)

"high degree of sexual dimorphism"???

"Biological text books state that humans have a high degree of sexual dimorphism"... No reputable text would say this. High sexual dimorphism is found in things like some species of anglerfish or spiders with the female 100-1000 times more massive than the male. Humans have a moderate degree - in that the sexes are easily visually distinguished - but less than most primates. Human males lack the enlarged canines of many primate males; the size difference between human men and women is less than that between gorilla males and females, or those of Australopithecus afarensis; we lack coloration differences like a mandrill or uakari. Sexual dimorphism in non-human primates generally correlates with terrestriality and large size -- we are large (the second largest living species), strongly terrestrial primates, yet with quite low levels of dimorphism. Therefore, I deleted the sentence. (David Brin is a good SF writer, at least sometimes, but he's not an expert on this anyway.) Vultur (talk) 06:35, 1 July 2009 (UTC) Oh, also: "moderate degree of parental investment compared to most other mammals"? No way. Humans, at least in monogamous cultures, have much higher parental investment than most mammals -- most animals, period. This is because human children are dependent so long. I didn't change this one yet, though, in case someone will explain what was intended. Vultur (talk) 06:38, 1 July 2009 (UTC)

Endurance

At one point the article states -

On average, men have a greater capacity for cardiovascular endurance. This is due to the enlargement of the lungs of boys during puberty, characterized by a more prominent chest.

Then two points down it states -

On average, women have more endurance than men.

Can someone clarify what is meant by the second point as it seems vague and conflicting with the first. In what way do women have more endurance than men? What type of endurance's are there other than cardiovascular without getting too abstract? 194.165.29.88 (talk) 15:23, 2 July 2009 (UTC)

Degree of dimorphism redux

From the caption of the "Expecting_family.jpg" picture: "Humans are a moderately sexually dimorphic species, but less dimorphic than most non-human animals." That is contradictory. If we are less sexually dimorphic than most non-human animals, then we're not "moderately" dimorphic, we're "slightly" dimorphic - what are we comparing it to besides non-human animals?

I don't want to be overbold and change all the "moderate" references to "slight" (though it would be far more accurate, especially if we're comparing humans primarily to other primates) - but I'm going to change that sentence to be non-self-contradictory. In the bigger picture, though, what do we want the article to say here? That human sexual dimorphism is minimal, slight compared to other primates (I would think this is the best option), moderate, or what? Vultur (talk) 10:58, 7 September 2009 (UTC)

The caption now says "Humans show some sexual dimorphism, but are less dimorphic than most other primates." I didn't see a need to compare human sexual dimorphism with that of, say, lampreys or black widows. Vultur (talk) 11:02, 7 September 2009 (UTC)