The differences between men and women are as multifaceted as they are obvious.
For decades intellectuals and those on the political Left have argued that there are no meaningful distinctions between men and women beyond the physical – and even the physical differences are denied by gender ideology, which has produced such bizarre linguistic contortions as “birthing person” or “person with a penis” and reduced the categories of “woman” and “man” into arbitrary, subjective sludge.
At the same time, an increasing body of scientific research supports what sensible people have known since time immemorial – men and women are complementary opposites with different ways of thinking, doing, and being.
“Of course, men and women have a tremendous amount in common,” Dennis Prager, founder of PragerU, clarified. Research indicates that men and women have the same average intelligence, for example, and members of both sexes are still moral agents with the capacity to do good or evil, although the set of temptations each sex will face differs.
But similarly robust data indicates that men and women differ drastically in median temperament, interests, political persuasion, attitudes towards child rearing, relationships, and sexuality, and even susceptibility to different kinds of mental illness.
Unlike the ironclad differences in body structure and genitalia, the temperamental differences between the sexes do exist on a spectrum – while some personality traits may be more common in women or more common in men, there will be some men who are more feminine, and some women who are more masculine. But the fact that there are exceptions to the rule does not disprove the general pattern: while there is considerable overlap between the sexes along dimensions, along others the typical differences are so great that exceptions are few and far between.
“We have to make generalizations but they have to be intelligent generalizations,” Prager says. “And you always have to offer examples to make your point about the generalization.”
One article Prager cites notes that women are more likely to suffer from mood disorders such as anxiety or depression, while men are more likely to have autism or ADHD. That roughly tracks with personality research, which suggests that women are more sensitive to negative emotion than men, while men are on average more impulsive and less sensitive to social cues than women. While there is no shortage of depressed men or autistic women, women are twice as likely to be diagnosed with depression and men are more than 4 times as likely to be autistic.
WATCH: Episode 8: Differences Between Men And Women
Another point Prager notes is that male and female infants play differently and have sex-based preferences in activities and toys. These differences have been validated cross-culturally and across species – infant monkeys prefer either wheeled toys or plush, doll-like toys depending on whether or not they’re male or female. As a whole, males are consistently more interested in motion and action while females are more interested in faces and people.
Prager also recounts an anecdote where lifelong liberal Larry Summers — former Clinton Treasury Secretary and president of Harvard University — bought his young daughter toy trucks in an attempt to be “gender neutral “ as a parent, only for her to immediately treat the toys like dolls, dubbing the larger one “daddy truck” and the smaller one “baby truck.”
Men are also much more physically aggressive than women and more likely to resort to violence. They tend to be more competitive and less likely to take disputes personally — Prager notes that male athletes have been found to be more likely to shake hands, pat each other on the back or otherwise physically reconcile after a high-level competition than female athletes are.
Men also tend to be more rough-and-tumble in their friendships. “When men really like each other, they insult each other,” Prager notes. By contrast, female friendships tend to be built on emotional support and intimacy — what a man might think of as playful teasing would in that context be a devastating slight.
Women, by contrast, tend to be more innately nurturing. They largely avoid physical confrontation and are highly concerned with the health of relationships and the needs of infants and other vulnerable members of the group.
“Women are optimized for taking care of a child,” Prager says, noting that this observation should be uncontroversial whether you believe they evolved to be this way or were created for that purpose. The fact of the difference and the obviousness of its importance is incontrovertible — human beings could not exist if someone wasn’t focused on caring for the next generation.
Prager also notes that this difference extends beyond the immediate household and applies to views of society at large.
“Women overwhelmingly are more likely to vote for the parties that want to nurture those in society who are, for example, poorer. They vote for the nurturing party,” Prager said.
Perhaps most frustratingly, men and women have different approaches to sex and romance, and often radically misunderstand one another.
“Women are aroused by their minds, men are aroused by their eyes,” Prager argues.
Men are predominantly aroused by visual cues of attraction: facial symmetry, waist-hip ratios, and other cues for fertility and health. They also have a greater interest in casual sex and are allured by the prospect of sexual variety — they are overwhelmingly more likely to consume pornography, patronize prostitutes, or pursue casual hookups.
“It’s not an excuse,” Prager says, arguing that those tendencies can be extremely destructive and have to be reined in, “but the fact that reality poses a problem is not a reason for a mature person to dismiss the reality.”
By contrast, while women are attracted to good-looking men, looks alone are rarely enough to keep their attention for long. Prager provides a list of other factors women consider when assessing a man that are at least as important as his looks, if not more so, including (but not limited to): “Voice, height, brains, personality, money, success, fame, power, charm, sense of humor, confidence.”
Put more scientifically: “While both sexes prefer a physically attractive mate or potential partner, males have been shown to report stronger such preferences for attractiveness … Females are more selective about other characteristics because their time for reproduction is more limited so they can’t risk choosing poorly.”
Prager also noted that the feminist push for “empowered” women to adopt male sexual norms and pursue casual sex was actively making women miserable. Denying the various differences causes both sexes to dismiss or disregard those differences, hurting themselves and each other.
“The better men and women understand each other, the more they’ll accept each other’s differences,” Prager says, “and that can serve as a very big help in their relationship.”
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