The Affect of Overall Wealth and Egalitarianism on Sex Based Differences

Where would you expect to find sex based differences in career choice most diminished? If you guessed in countries with more wealth and egalitarian culture, you would be wrong. David Geary discusses and interprets the data in his article, "The Nurture of Evolved Sex Differences: Why favorable conditions produce larger sex differences." In wealthy countries like Norway, increased numbers of women pour into fields that are "people oriented" rather than "thing oriented." Consider, first, this data:

As reviewed by Schmitt and colleagues [33], sex differences in many aspects of personality, self-esteem, and cognitive and psychological functioning are larger in WEIRD, gender equal countries. For instance, women are generally more cooperative and agreeable than men and men are more Machiavellian than women, on average. These differences are larger in more egalitarian countries. One potential reason is that religious prohibitions and proscriptions increase social cooperation and decrease self-serving behaviors in men and this in turn reduces the sex differences in these areas. The release of these prohibitions enables fuller expression of underlying differences; in this case, a decrease in men’s agreeableness and an increase in their use of Machiavellian social strategies [34].

Occupational segregation also increases in WEIRD, gender equal countries, presumably due to underlying differences in preferences for working with and helping people as contrasted with working with things [35]. Girls’ and women’s greater interest in other people and relationships follows from their greater investment in children and their need to develop BFF (best friends forever) relationships that serve as a source of social and emotional support. Boys’ and men’s greater interest in things likely follows from an evolutionary history of tool making, most of which is done by men.

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The Dangers of Living in an Impoverished Ever-Malleable Present

My dog lives in the eternal present. It's OK for dogs to do so, but not OK for people. People need a sense of history to avoid the mistakes of the past.  People need a foundation of hard-earned knowledge on which to make sense of the future or else they will not ever accomplish great things.  Without a solid foundation of knowledge based on history, people will live like dogs.

Every record has been destroyed or falsified, every book rewritten, every picture has been repainted, every statue and street building has been renamed, every date has been altered. And the process is continuing day by day and minute by minute. History has stopped. Nothing exists except an endless present in which the Party is always right.

George Orwell - 1984

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The Return of Transexual

Billboard Chris recommends that we give up on the word "gender." I agree. At its worst, it is an invitation to engage in old and reprehensible stereotypes (because girls who like to play with trucks are 100% girls). At its best, it is a meaningless word. At one point it was a polite way to avoid saying "sex."

By returning to "transexual," we recognize that there are only two sexes and that a person of one sex is presenting as the other. It is not a pejorative. It is recognizing some basic fact. Everyone out there, including people with sexual dysphoria who present themselves as the opposite sex, deserve kindness, respect and full legal rights as a person. Therefore, using "transexual" is truly not an insult. The benefit of using "transexual" is that we are recognizing basic biology and avoiding massive confusion associated with gender ideology. What confusion, you might ask?  How about this chart published by (believe it or not) Scientific American.

Two years ago I was scolded and told it was impolite, but I now disagree. I'm imagining the conversation when I start using transexual again. It will probably come down to a discussion (probably an argument) about who has the final say over how we use words. I'll see how it goes.

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Three Reasons Why There are Two–and Only Two–Biological Sexes.

Zach Elliot is an author of two books on sex and gender and a producer of 20+ animated videos on sex differences. Here is the intro to his article: "What Are Sexes? There is much confusion in our current culture as to what sexes are and what they are not."

There is much confusion in our current culture as to what sexes are and what they are not. When biologists make a claim about the number of sexes in a species, they are not making a claim about chromosomes, body types, or personal identity; rather, they are making a claim about the number of distinct reproductive strategies in that species.

A reproductive strategy is an evolved system for propagating genes and forming a new individual. In sexually reproducing species, producing a new individual requires the combination of at least two distinct and complementary reproductive strategies. These strategies are fulfilled through the delivery of genetic material in sex cells called gametes, which have half the genetic material of the parent. When two gametes fuse, they form a genetically unique individual with a full set of chromosomes.

Some species reproduce through gametes of the same size (isogamy) and can have many unique reproductive strategies called mating types, which control what gametes can fuse with one another, but their differences do not go far beyond the molecular level. On the other hand, most species in the plant and animal kingdoms reproduce through gametes of differing size and form (anisogamy), where there is an asymmetry in size and behavior between the interacting gametes and often the individual organisms themselves.

When gamete sizes are differentiated (anisogamy), there are typically exactly two sexes, no more and no less. In such systems, the reproductive strategy that produces the smaller gametes is designated as male and the reproductive strategy that produces the larger gametes is designated as female. It is not the physical size of the gametes themselves that differentiates the male and female reproductive strategies, but rather what those size differences represent.

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