I shouldn't be asking but...

[rochvelleth]

Part 1:

Do you think men and women think differently? Either in the sense that their thought processes are different (or indeed speech patterns, etc.) or in the sense that they tend towards different behaviour or sets of beliefs or opinions? Do you have any good examples?

This was sparked by several recent debates. Oh, I wish I had the time to

Comments

[naath]

I think that men and women are trained from an early age to have different behaviors and to express their thoughts and emotions in different ways. I also think that male and female brain wiring is subtly different and that male and female sex hormones have different effects on brain chemistry, so there is a physical thing.

In practice I find that the spectrum of ways-men-think and the spectrum of ways-women-think overlap entirely, but that the the average-man and the average-woman are somewhat different.

I don't know how to tell what is physically caused and what is socially caused though. Maybe we should experiment on trans people, or maybe that would be Cruel And Unusual.

About geographical background - I think that people do have different speech patterns and different cultural assumptions based on where (and how) they were brought up.

I have no useful examples.

[linnhie]

Oh, these are such broad areas that I don't think it's possible to narrow behaviour or thought down to a differences based on just gender or geography. There are so many other influences on a person's circumstances that affect their behaviour/attitudes, e.g. class, upbringing, politics even

[sonicdrift]

Your first two lines are fine, then I have to object.

This is the same as someone saying English men make better partners than Scottish men as Scottish men are tight, drunken wife beaters. Justifying it by saying you have observed it and found other people who also hold your prejudice does not count as evidence for such a generalisation.

[linnhie]

You have the right to regard this as prejudice, just as I have the right to regard this as a cultural (and geographical) difference.