# Male/female brain differences dictate the predominance of men and women in certain professions!



## Ralphy1 (Feb 10, 2016)

No matter the efforts to get more women into engineering and more men into elementary education it just hasn't produced the desired results.  Men go for more of the math and science and women go for the early development and nurturing.  This is a given that some just will never accept...


----------



## SifuPhil (Feb 10, 2016)

I think women are naturally nurturers, and thus excel at any job that includes the care of children (with obvious exceptions, of course). Men are a bit more ham-fisted and, unfortunately in today's climate, are not trusted with children. 

As for the "manly" professions - aren't there quite a few female scientists, mathematicians and so on?


----------



## Ralphy1 (Feb 10, 2016)

According to the research you are right, especially in regard to women, but men are still wanted to work with young children as good men can model male behavior...


----------



## SifuPhil (Feb 10, 2016)

Ralphy1 said:


> According to the research you are right, especially in regard to women, but men are still wanted to work with young children as good men can model male behavior...



I would imagine any "good man" in his right mind would run screaming from such professions ... at least I would.


----------



## Shalimar (Feb 10, 2016)

My daughter in law, aced calculus, statistics, prof wanted her to go in for applied mathematics, she preferred ultimately, to seek her second degree in law.


----------



## Ralphy1 (Feb 10, 2016)

Once again there are exceptions to the rule.  Judith Polgar is a chess grandmaster but female grandmasters are rare.  Further, the law can be highly verbal and women are much more verbal than men.  In fact, one study showed that men thought women talked too much and women thought men talked too little...


----------



## QuickSilver (Feb 10, 2016)

I'm not sure how much is "hard wired" and how much is simply cultural..   I excelled in math and science in grade school, consistently scoring #1 in my class in the Standardized tests..  But somehow, around puberty I and most girls were given the silent message that girls weren't supposed to be good in those things.   We weren't supposed to be able to compete in math and sciences... and the boys ZOOMED way ahead.   It was unspoken, but one would have had to be completely oblivious to  NOT pick it up.  By the time we were in High school... Girls seldom received guidance counseling and if they did, they were funneled into the more "female" professions of teaching, nursing, secretay, and first and foremost... wife and mother..   I should have gone to Med school, but blew my chance by getting married way to young.   I did eventually go into nursing.. but again... a pale second to my real potential.   It's better now for females... but still not on par with males.


----------



## Shalimar (Feb 10, 2016)

Really, my son ran at nine months, talked at a year. Spoke complete language at two and a half, has not stopped talking since.
works in a supervisory position, where he communicates all day long. Kissed the blarney stone, he romanced it! He has 

excellent orienteering skills, spacial concepts etc, degree in psychology in a university which taught it as a science, loves 

technology, but wants to work with people. Currently, he is working on his first science fiction fantasy novel. He is a dungeon 

master in D and D games. Plays airsoft. High energy like his mother. Very empathetic. Better people skills than I. Loves his cats as children.His wife has a  scientific mind.


----------



## SifuPhil (Feb 10, 2016)

Very true about the "funneling" in school. Even as late as the mid-seventies, my high school - which until then was exclusively male - took in a few girls and created two "majors" for them - fashion design and home economics. None of the girls entered chemistry or electronics.

It's probably different now ... I hope ...


----------



## Ralphy1 (Feb 10, 2016)

It is different now but the results are not much different.  Once the cultural pressures had been removed the male/female differences are apparent, and once again anecdotal stories are nice but belie the reality...


----------



## Shalimar (Feb 10, 2016)

It is difficult to overcome generations/centuries of stereotyping in one generation. In University, female engineering students 

are often derided by their peers, many female scientists leave academia to pursue careers in the private sector because of the old boy era prejudices that still exist. Even female doctors do not have an equal path. Let us not totally concentrate   on statistics 

which can easily be manipulated, and instead offer an open playing field for women to excel in whatever field they show promise. Who cares if more men have better scientific minds, let us stop throwing road blocks against the women who have 

mathematical and scientific genius. Remember the American housewife who solved a mathematical riddle that had stumped the pros? Wonder what her life may have been like under a less male dominated society? Grade school girls often excel in 

math and science, this drops off sharply in adolescence. Interesting. If the stats are true and seventy percent of males score higher on the so called scientific mathematical scale, what about the remaining thirty percent of women who score well? Where 


is the push to help them fulfill their potential? While  discrimination exists in academia against equal opportunity for their own female scientific colleagues, and schools still promote boys over girls (did a paper on it once) in scientific mathematical 

teaching, what do we expect?   I cannot do geometry  to save my life, but can do arithmetic in my head, aced philosophy, algebra, and behavioural psychology aka rat psychology. So what? Proves nothing. My son is a very good chess player, I prefer 

mah Jong. Many different types of pattern recognition, many women ace at logic, and interior design, which is all about balance and harmony-- mathematical concepts, we need to change our thinking, remember the female codebreakers of WW2?  I lack 

direction sense, but have an excellent sense of time. It all balances out. A century ago women were still fighting to vote. Let us achieve parity, then count coup. For now the game is still run by white privileged older men. Pardon my skepticism if I think the deck is stacked.


----------



## QuickSilver (Feb 10, 2016)

I'm not sure if men have better mathematical or scientific minds... or if women have just been taught to believe they do not.


----------



## SifuPhil (Feb 10, 2016)

QuickSilver said:


> I'm not sure if men have better mathematical or scientific minds... or if women have just been taught to believe they do not.



We white older privileged men have you all brainwashed - BWAhahahahahaha!


----------



## Ralphy1 (Feb 10, 2016)

The brain research that has been done is conclusive that our brains are different.  For example, the corpus colosseum between the hemispheres, which is the connective tissue, is much more extensive in women, which might account for particular attributes, such as reading faces and body language, much better than men...


----------



## Shalimar (Feb 10, 2016)

Honestly, are some educated men still unaware how  unequal the playing field still is? I had to work twice as hard to get my 

graduate degree as my male counterparts, and had a PHD friend (male) shred my 'scientific' thesis three times to make it misogyny proof He walked me through my defence until I could do it in my sleep.lol . Fortunately, one 

of  the judging  panel was a woman of impeccable credentials, chair of the dept, otherwise, I may have been rejected. not only was I female, but heaven forfend, attractive? Gaaaaah. Cute little girls should go home and bake cookies!!!!!


----------



## QuickSilver (Feb 10, 2016)

SifuPhil said:


> We white older privileged men have you all brainwashed - BWAhahahahahaha!



It seemed as most women fell in line back then and didn't question the program..   Look how the womens' movement was ridiculed.. even by some women..


----------



## Shalimar (Feb 10, 2016)

I am with you QS. I was working with the available stats, questionable though they are, pointing out the lack of parity exists in opportunity even if these dubious wave curve crapology is correct. My friends tease me, and call me a mentat, must be 

referring to my ability to make needlework men? Lolol  Old boys network wants to keep it's power, and control the glass ceiling forever, good luck with that! Dinosaur thinking, doomed to extinction.


----------



## Ralphy1 (Feb 10, 2016)

Now, now, that was prevalent in the past.  But brain research was being done, and some women were conducting it, Marion Diamond, for example...


----------



## Shalimar (Feb 10, 2016)

Now, now? Don't patronise me Ralphy, or I will do a mind meld.......


----------



## Ralphy1 (Feb 10, 2016)

Not patronizing, just pointing out that our individual histories should not get in the way of the research.  Our life experiences can cloud our our opinions.  A good way to look at it is one I heard a long time ago when an administrator was making decisions on what curriculum male and female students should be encouraged to follow.  He was asked if his decisions were based upon personal or professional opinions.  The room fell silent as this truly exposed the truth of what was going on.  The administrator never read a professional journal and was locked in the past of his own upbringing...


----------



## jujube (Feb 10, 2016)

My granddaughter took both paths, majoring in biology and now teaching general science, biology, chemistry and physics to students on the spectrum.  Scientific nurturing, I guess you'd call it.....


----------



## Ralphy1 (Feb 10, 2016)

A good combination...


----------



## SifuPhil (Feb 10, 2016)

In the distant future of _Star Trek_ there is total gender parity.

The men wear handsome, well-fitted outfits and the women wear micro-skirts.


----------



## QuickSilver (Feb 10, 2016)

SifuPhil said:


> In the distant future of _Star Trek_ there is total gender parity.
> 
> The men wear handsome, well-fitted outfits and the women wear micro-skirts.



Even the ugly ones?


----------



## AprilT (Feb 10, 2016)

My sister and now her daughter both excelled in these areas.  My sister stayed at the top of her class in the High School of Science, was swayed to a different field for a bit because of a volleyball scholarship but eventually transferred to an IT school.  My niece has an engineering degree.  Now me, that's another subject all together, my brain doesn't like math but still did pretty well when I could stay focused.


----------



## SifuPhil (Feb 10, 2016)

QuickSilver said:


> Even the ugly ones?



There ARE no ugly ones. Somehow, whether through selective breeding, Star Fleet regulations or plain old chance, every woman is beautiful and every man handsome.


----------



## Warrigal (Feb 10, 2016)

SifuPhil said:


> In the distant future of _Star Trek_ there is total gender parity.
> 
> The men wear handsome, well-fitted outfits and the women wear micro-skirts.



And women captain starships wearing well fitted uniforms.


----------



## SifuPhil (Feb 10, 2016)

Warrigal said:


> And women captain starships wearing well fitted uniforms.



Ah ... I never really got past STTNG ...


----------



## Warrigal (Feb 10, 2016)

Ralphy1 said:


> No matter the efforts to get more women into engineering and more men into elementary education it just hasn't produced the desired results.  Men go for more of the math and science and women go for the early development and nurturing.  This is a given that some just will never accept...



Pffft. 

I was besotted by science in general and chemistry in particular. I was good at maths and physics but the high school that I attended would not allow girls to study physics as a matriculation subject. 

It's called channeling and I was channeled into teaching high school science because the only way I could afford university was to accept a Teachers' College Scholarship which bonded me to teach for at least five years after graduation. Boys were eligible for cadetships that funded them through engineering and guaranteed them unbonded employment at the end of their studies.


----------



## AprilT (Feb 10, 2016)

QuickSilver said:


> I'm not sure if men have better mathematical or scientific minds... or if women have just been taught to believe they do not.



^This.


----------



## Warrigal (Feb 10, 2016)

This long post is for Ralphy.

Things are changing. STEM stands for Science Technology Engineering and Mathematics



> *Women in STEM: On UN International Day of Women and Girls in Science, meet five scientists making strides*
> 
> By Kristian Silva
> Thu 11 Feb 2016
> ...


----------



## Butterfly (Feb 10, 2016)

QuickSilver said:


> I'm not sure how much is "hard wired" and how much is simply cultural..   I excelled in math and science in grade school, consistently scoring #1 in my class in the Standardized tests..  But somehow, around puberty I and most girls were given the silent message that girls weren't supposed to be good in those things.   We weren't supposed to be able to compete in math and sciences... and the boys ZOOMED way ahead.   It was unspoken, but one would have had to be completely oblivious to  NOT pick it up.  By the time we were in High school... Girls seldom received guidance counseling and if they did, they were funneled into the more "female" professions of teaching, nursing, secretay, and first and foremost... wife and mother..   I should have gone to Med school, but blew my chance by getting married way to young.   I did eventually go into nursing.. but again... a pale second to my real potential.   It's better now for females... but still not on par with males.



I agree.  I also wonder how much of it, at least nowdays, is the resistance of males to females entering their formerly all-male professions.  I know it isn't supposed to go on, but it absolutely does.


----------



## Butterfly (Feb 10, 2016)

QuickSilver said:


> I'm not sure if men have better mathematical or scientific minds... or if women have just been taught to believe they do not.



I'm with you on this one, QS.  This certainly took place back when I was in high school.


----------



## Underock1 (Feb 11, 2016)

Shalimar said:


> Really, my son ran at nine months, talked at a year. Spoke complete language at two and a half, has not stopped talking since.
> works in a supervisory position, where he communicates all day long. Kissed the blarney stone, he romanced it! He has
> 
> excellent orienteering skills, spacial concepts etc, degree in psychology in a university which taught it as a science, loves
> ...



Gee. You could at least be proud of him! :laugh:   I'm happy for you, Shali.


----------



## chic (Feb 11, 2016)

Being a mathemetician or scientist pays better than being in education and since men are programmed to be the breadwinners maybe this is part of the reason why they show less interest in education or nurturing occupations than women.

Women can do anything they set their minds to so I feel it's 100% conditioning guiding them away from scientific careers and into nurturing, which we were built for, let's face it. But that never means a woman can't do as well as a man in any of the maths or sciences. If it isn't happening I think it's not happening for those reasons.


----------



## Warrigal (Feb 11, 2016)

But it is happening. Here is just one example.

This young woman has been named Queensland Young Australian of the Year for 2016.
She happens to be a professional mechanical engineer.


> *What makes Yassmin Abdel-Magied a turbocharged engineer?
> 
> *
> 
> ...


----------



## Ralphy1 (Feb 11, 2016)

See my post apologizing to Shali today.  The cultural barriers are pretty much down but the numbers will always be skewed in certain careers favoring men or women in certain professions because of our inherently different biology.  This met with resistance when presented in the past as it does by some today.  The evolution from a patriarchal society is probably at the root of this resistance as women are still angry at their lack of opportunity in the past...


----------



## Warrigal (Feb 11, 2016)

Perhaps but I'm more inclined to see a parallel with the way women were long excluded from medicine and the legal profession.

Men in prestigious professions don't like sharing with women and tend to erect barriers. 
Many women accept the barriers because they buy the biological argument. 

I don't.


----------



## Ralphy1 (Feb 11, 2016)

As I have said, a lot of women just won't accept what the research shows.  I have been accused of making vast generalizations by very defensive women, but I would tell them that these generalizations are used to present a truth about us that applies to the vast majority...


----------



## AprilT (Feb 11, 2016)

http://www.pbs.org/newshour/making-sense/truth-women-stem-careers/









At the Ph.D. level, women have clearly achieved equity in the biosciences and social sciences, are nearly there (40 percent) in mathematics and the physical sciences, and are “over-represented” in psychology (78 percent). Again, the only fields in which men greatly outnumber women are computer science and engineering.
============================================================================================



The article in the link does go on to say that there are some gender preferences, but, that capabilities aren't gender specific.


----------



## Ralphy1 (Feb 11, 2016)

The freeing up of society has allowed women to gain parity in many fields (even in politics where we might have a female president). It is politically incorrect to even mention gender differences these days, but if you look at us you should realize that they exist.  Math and engineering will be dominated by men as will elementary teaching and nursing be dominated by women...


----------



## AprilT (Feb 11, 2016)

Yeah, allowing women. This talk sounds more like wounded male ego than anything to do with political correctness nonsense.  If my footnote was looked at, one would see reference to acknowledgement of the fact that the article speaks of there being some innate gender differences.  There are some differences in men and women, there's no doubt about it, there are also some influences that are more in line with preference and culture influences and adaptations.

BTW, I am happy for the many differences in the genders, I love all that makes us different and the same as well.  I am very attracted to things about men and wouldn't look to women for those traits, but when it comes to mental skill set even playing field for the most part maybe with a strong leaning to the female side.


----------



## Ralphy1 (Feb 11, 2016)

I grew up in a family totally comprised of females and so there is no wounded ego.  When I pursued certain avenues of interest and presented programs in them some men couldn't understand why I would do such a thing, but I was well aware that women wanted to know things like why the emotional intimacy had gone out their marriages, why men put careers over family, etc., etc....


----------



## Shalimar (Feb 11, 2016)

Times have changed in the past sixty or seventy years. So has thinking? Emotional immaturity,re relationships, often attributed to males, is a cultural rather than gender specific trait. I see far less of it in my male kid's generation than in the previous ones.
my mother and aunt put,their careers first, they certainly were not the only ones. Neither were they nurturing.Careers were not de rigeur for women of that era, often the contempt they received made them cold and harsh.  Now, we have a growing 

number of house husbands, choosing to stay home with their kids, some, but not all, work from home. Things are changing.


----------



## Warrigal (Feb 11, 2016)

OK, Ralphy. Check out my new topic about the detection of gravitational waves and join the conversation. 

https://www.seniorforums.com/showthread.php/20124-Gravitational-Waves-Detected?p=414609#post414609

I eagerly await your male insights. No mansplaining will be acceptable.

My Dad used to say, "Put up or shut up". Which one will it be today?


----------



## Ralphy1 (Feb 11, 2016)

My interest in women's concerns grew out of listening to the women in the family talk about boyfriends, husbands, etc.  A female social worker asked me to help with parent education to provide a male perspective.  These programs we built into continuous ones rather than ones of short duration, and once again I was listening to questions about the behavior of boys and men.  This led to the adult life programs that were attended almost complete by women at the community college while the men jammed into the electronic and motorcycle maintenance...


----------



## Ralphy1 (Feb 11, 2016)

Warri, I went to a radio school right out of high school, a typical male pursuit in those days.  After maturing a little, I became more interested in Einstein's personal life rather  than his professional one, and his male behavior was rather classic.  His theories, I find hard pressed to grasp...


----------



## Shalimar (Feb 11, 2016)

Apology from Ralphy to Shali? where? This I must see!!


----------



## Warrigal (Feb 11, 2016)

> His theories, I find hard pressed to grasp...


You're not the only one. 
However, this new discovery might help us all better understand his theory of general relativity.


----------



## SifuPhil (Feb 11, 2016)

Ralphy1 said:


> Warri, I went to a radio school right out of high school, a typical male pursuit in those days.  After maturing a little, I became more interested in Einstein's personal life rather  than his professional one, *and his male behavior was rather classic*.  His theories, I find hard pressed to grasp...



Yeah, real classic - had a daughter he never saw, married his first cousin, was sending love letters to another woman while his wife was pregnant - real classic.


----------



## Warrigal (Feb 11, 2016)

And Wagner was a total bastard. So what?
He's dead but his music endures.

So let it be with Einstein.


----------



## Warrigal (Feb 11, 2016)

How men can stem the exodus of women from science - written by a male scientist.

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2016-02-...stem-the-exodus-of-women-from-science/7155366

It sort of boils down to the slogan "Don't be a Dick!"


----------



## Shalimar (Feb 11, 2016)

Lewis Carroll was a suspected pedophile, but I loved his books.


----------



## SifuPhil (Feb 11, 2016)

Shalimar said:


> Lewis Carroll was a suspected pedophile, but I loved his books.



So all of these guys were "classic males", huh?

Hmph ... and all this time I've been trying to avoid being a d*ck ...


----------



## Warrigal (Feb 11, 2016)

So were Arthur C Clarke and J M Barrie but their works are important additions to the English canon.
In the case of Clarke it was more than a suspicion.


----------



## Susie (Feb 11, 2016)

A fascinating subject--thanks to those of you who debated, explained, defined!!!


----------



## SifuPhil (Feb 11, 2016)

Warrigal said:


> So were Arthur C Clarke and J M Barrie but their works are important additions to the English canon.
> In the case of Clarke it was more than a suspicion.



Okay, if you'd be so kind, just to clarify this so I can write it down in my notebook here - 

It's okay to be a philandering, sexist jerk, so long as I leave some good writing behind?

Hell, I'm in like Flint!


----------



## Warrigal (Feb 11, 2016)

No, as long as sexist, philandering jerks are breathing they are persona non grata with me but after they are dead, 
if they leave behind anything good, it can be appreciated.

Even then a gap of about 25 years is necessary before that can occur.

Harris' and Cosby's bodies of work won't be getting reruns any time soon.


----------



## SifuPhil (Feb 11, 2016)

*scribbles in notebook*

25 year gap

*underlines*


----------



## Ralphy1 (Feb 12, 2016)

Leonard Bernstein was conducting to an outdoor audience in Israel some time ago and announced he was going to play something from Wagner, very few left...


----------



## Underock1 (Feb 16, 2016)

Warrigal said:


> How men can stem the exodus of women from science - written by a male scientist.
> 
> http://www.abc.net.au/news/2016-02-...stem-the-exodus-of-women-from-science/7155366
> 
> It sort of boils down to the slogan "Don't be a Dick!"



I didn't look at the site but yeah! "Don't be a Dick!" Even if you don't have one.


----------



## Shalimar (Feb 16, 2016)

Wonderful Warri! Wish all guys were like you Underock. Even though my career is no longer  considered a 'soft' science, the prejudice was, and still is there. To his discredit,  recently, my doctor's locum, well aware of my education,  sneered at the type of easy 

courses such as psych 101  and all the other soft stuff I studied, re the hard chem 

and math courses he took. He had no idea what my course load entailed. He just assumed. I stared him in the eye, and suggested he try attending university while experiencing PTSD. That shut him up. I told him, you can't medicate, because it fuzzes your brain, 



and affects your concentration. So you live in a split 

screen world. He was still competing, surprised I graduated from a good university, going on about his marks. I got pissed--not to my credit, but this was during the worst of the tooth infection  wars, where he also insinuated my childhood dental abuse may 

have been due to me 

being a hot fifteen year old. Not that it matters, I was eight. I blasted him. Apparently his dad was a dentist? . Anyway, I dug up my final documents for my degrees, including Doctorate, and shared them with him on my last visit. Class whore that he is, 

his treatment of me changed. I can't believe your marks he said. I smiled and said, my intelligence has always been considerably larger than my dress size, that I had never found breasts to be a barrier to brilliance. 

. I did not tell him I am not brilliant, just very focused, and was tutored in statistics four nights a week for nine months before I had to take the course. Lol.  PS, hard science courses were also required as I progressed along my chosen path. Were  they 

more difficult? except for stats, no. Just different. Ultimately, far less relevant to a career which relies far more on empathy 

Than wave curve analysis, or rat psychology, and where service dogs often offer more healing than I ever could. Lol. Sometimes, male military refuse to work with a woman, cuz I won't understand, usually their friends, former clients suggest 

they give me a chance. Usually it works out. Colleagues, ninety percent positive. When I started out, perhaps fifty percent.
we've come a long way baby!


----------



## SifuPhil (Feb 16, 2016)

You could always remind him he's "just" a locum ...


----------



## Shalimar (Feb 16, 2016)

Philly, not my style. Lolol.


----------



## SifuPhil (Feb 16, 2016)

LOL - you'd rather drag out the diplomas! 

Hey - we each have our own ways of battling ignorance. I prefer a Louisville Slugger ...


----------



## Shalimar (Feb 16, 2016)

Hahaha! One day Mr. locum is going to trip over his ego and break something all by his wittle self.


----------



## SifuPhil (Feb 16, 2016)

Ah, the Zen approach - okay.


----------



## fureverywhere (Feb 16, 2016)

Oy that having a hootie means anything to do with brains...


----------



## Shalimar (Feb 16, 2016)

Canuck asks what is a hootie?


----------



## SifuPhil (Feb 16, 2016)

American asks, Hootie and the Blowfish?

Hootie, the Wise Old Owl? 

Hootie Tootie, there goes Shoe-Booty?


----------



## vickyNightowl (Feb 16, 2016)

Hootie the 'special' mushrooom?


----------



## Shalimar (Feb 16, 2016)

I categorically state that no Canadian women know anything about hootie, their definition, origin, or possible applications. The are alien to our northern consciousness. Long may they remain so.


----------



## Warrigal (Feb 16, 2016)

Means nothing to me either.


----------



## SifuPhil (Feb 16, 2016)

I actually like this song - didn't know they did it ...


----------

