From the vaults: Dan4th's Unbridled Nastiness

Today's post comes from my vault of unfinished drafts, because I have a busy morning ahead of me at work. The following was written on February 20, 2008.

This week (edit: see February 2008) I noticed that Schmitt's original paper for the ISDP cites both Bailey and Baron-Cohen unironically. What that basically means, unfortunately, is that I stopped listening. So let's make fun of their web designs.

Seriously, someone hire these people web designers. I'm using LiveJournal (edit: and now Blogger), fer chrissakes, and I'm turned off by their webpages. The current incarnation if the ISDP (ISDP-2) is hosted by Michael Mills at Loyola Marymount University, Los Angeles. The study page isn't dated (it's a personal pet peeve) but the website (in a lovely shade of lavender) has been updated for Spring 2008, so I have some hope that it's still useful. This is the same link that I provided last May 2007, but it seems to be active now. David P. Schmitt's webpage is also not my most favorite design ever. Actually, it reminds me a lot of the Angelfire page of mine that was deleted last year, right down to the ad banner for the hosting service. Basically, I have no leg to stand on, but I'm poking at them anyway. *poke, poke*

---

Well, that was unattractive. For the record, I'd like to say that I did think better of posting that at the time, but I'd like to discuss the idea of "not listening" based on someone's resources. It's something I've paid special attention to fighting in myself over the past few months. I've been writing Difference Blog for over two years, and one of the neat "meta" things has been watching my own relationship with gender and sex difference research. I've gone from credulous to indignant to exhausted to cautious -- I hope. Have you noticed any difference to your reaction to various authors?

Adoption rates

American men (18-44) are more than twice as likely to have adopted a child than women, according to a CDC press release (2008). The difference may originate with men adopting their wives' children from previous marriages. Never-married women were slightly more likely than never-married men to adopt, although both groups were less likely to adopt than ever-married persons. Analysis was based on the 2002 National Survey of Family Growth (NSFG).

This is especially interesting, because most adoption studies focus solely on mothers. Chandra et al's (1999) study of American adoption trends found that adoption rates were dropping in the U.S. based on NSFG data from 1973 - 1995. Lamb (2007) examined men's likelihood of adopting stepchildren, and found that the cohabitation of the father's biological children was an indicator of likelihood of stepchild adoption.

---

One figure from the Chandra article that I found really depressing was that only 31% of those who had taken steps towards adoption had actually adopted. The difficulty of adoption is so frustrating to me. Recent papers seem to focus largely on international adoptions, but the adoptions within existing families (stepchild adoption) had never occurred to me until I started today's research. That's odd, I suppose, because I dated at least one guy who had been adopted by his stepfather - but it was always overshadowed in my mind by the childless couples I'd known who had worked so hard to adopt, and been so frustrated. As a concept, adoption makes me really happy; adoption anecdotes are by-and-large depressing.

Mazes and Mouse Models

Jonasson (2005) provides a fascinating meta-analysis of differences in learning behavior between male and female rats and mice. Jonasson's analysis found that the advantages for male rats were reliable in both the water maze and the radial arm maze. However, when mice were studied, females had the advantage in the water maze, while males did better on the radial arm maze. Van der Staay (2006) notes that mutant mice, often used to study biobehavioral differences, often have their behavior types determined by mixed-gender groups, weakening the "sex differences" that may appear in later experiments with the breed (often based on samples too small for reliability). Van der Staay also notes that Jonasson's results call into question the generalizability of sex-based biobehavioral models from rat and mice studies to other species.

---

I monitor the search terms that bring new readers to Difference Blog more closely than I should, because it tends to be bad for my psyche. You see, one of the main search terms that generates new hits is "animal sex" (and I'm appalled to think how putting that in quotes is going to affect today's numbers).

Animal studies are one of the biggest tools used to demonstrate the innate nature of sex differences, and I have to admit that I can't think of a better way to do it, if that's your goal. But Jonasson's analysis really puts into focus my main problem with the practice: if rats and mice have different sex patterns from each other, how different must they be from humans?

Suicide Notes

Shalina Girdhar studies suicide in India, and has found several gender-related factors in the practice of leaving suicide notes. Girdhar et al (2004) found that men were more likely to leave a note than women. According to a 2008 Reuter's article, Girdhar found that men were more likely to leave instructions for the care of their families in their absence; while "women hardly ever blame others in their suicide notes."

However, the gender differences appear to be largely cultural. In a similar Mexican study, Chávez-Hernández et al (2006) did not find a significant difference in note-writing between male and female suicides. Yip et al (1998), in Hong Kong, found that young females were the group most likely to leave suicide notes, but that the gender differences reversed with age, with older men being more likely than older women to leave notes. Kuwabara et al (2006) found a slight difference favoring females in note leaving in a Japanese sample.

---

I notice two things here that might affect suicide note statistics. First, none of these studies appear to examine notes left by unsuccessful suicides - that is, people who survived. Secondly, several of them note that the note-leavers are more educated. I have to wonder if there's a confound for literacy by culture that isn't being examined. Myself, I used to write lots of suicide notes. I've never made an attempt, so I don't really count them, but I enjoyed writing the notes. I haven't written one in over a decade, but it was a lovely way to wallow in self-pity for an hour or so when I enjoyed that kind of thing.

Honey, I have a headache

Frese et al (2003) interviewed 51 sufferers of headaches associated with sexual activity (HSA). The male-to-female ratio of men and women presenting with HSA was 2.9:1, suggesting that HSA is far more common in men. About 1 in 5 of the patients interviewed had HSA Type 1, where a mild headache increases with increasing excitement; HSA Type 2 is marked by sudden onset, and more lingering pain. HSA showed significant comorbidity with migraine, exertional headaches, and tension-related headaches. Age at HSA onset averaged 35.2 years. Age distribution seemed to be bimodal, with two age groups showing elevated risk: 20-24 years, and 35-44 years.

Biehl et al (2007) confirmed the comorbity with migraine that Frese et al documented, finding no instance of HSA control subjects, but 5% HSA among migraine sufferers (men and women). This is especially interesting given the higher prevalence of migraine among women (about 3:1, Lipton et al, 2007). Women seem to be more likely to report headaches in general, with 70% of emergency room headache complainants being women (Goldstein et al, 2006).

---

I found it very interesting that only 29% of Frese's patients also reported exertional headaches under non-sexual circumstances, because I'd always assumed that sex headaches were strictly exertional. I've been lucky enough to only get mild ones, and only rarely. It usually seems to be dehydration-related. Actually, way too many of my headaches appear to be related to dehydration, and yet I keep forgetting to drink enough water: stupid. It seems to me like most of the men I've had ongoing sexual relationships with have been plagued with headaches, both sexual and non-sexual. I hope it's not something I'm doing.

Swallowing hard

Youmans et al (2008) compared maximum tongue strength across age and gender. The study determined that women use a greater percentage of their maximum tongue strength during swallowing, and also showed a higher tongue pressure during swallowing. That is, the pressure a woman generates during swallowing may be stronger than the pressure a man generates. Gender differences were not significant in the youngest group (20-39).

This is remarkable because Dworkin et al (1980) found that men had greater maximum tongue strength than women, and confirmed these results in Dworkin and Aronson (1986). In the Youmans study, maximum tongue pressure was not significantly different in any age group. (edit: That's "between men and women in the same age group.")

---

That's right, you heard it here first. Men are lazy swallowers. They have all this tongue strength, sure, but they don't use it. Now, of course, I'm sure you're all taking this to exactly the same place I am: pill swallowing. Clearly, this is why men are such wimps about swallowing pills. Now, I can't say I've noticed any difference in my tongue strength or swallowing pressure since I transitioned. If only there was some independent source who had experience of my tongue strength, and could provide a more objective opinion. Sadly, I can't think of any situation where that would come up.

Asthma

Tantisira et al (2008) found that girls with childhood asthma were less likely to recover by age 18 than boys. This is not surprising, given that Sears et al (2003) found greater persistence of wheezing episodes in girls than in boys. Both studies essentially suggest that boys are more likely to "grow out of it", as BBC News (2008) reports.

Osman et al (2007) point out that over just the past 15 years, the male-to-female ratio of asthma diagnoses has made a significant shift. In 1989, the M:F ratio of adolescents diagnosed with asthma was 1.74, but in 2004, it was 1.02. Osman suggests that doctors were more likely to diagnose asthma in boys than in girls in the past, but admits there may be other factors which have increased the incidence of asthma in girls as well. One suggested cause for the narrowing ratio is that asthma incidence is typically higher in males before puberty and females after puberty, and age of puberty onset has been dropping.

---

Over half of all children suffer asthma-like symptoms at some point in childhood according to Sears's study. I'm baffled and shocked by that figure. I recognize that my view of the affliction is largely influenced by Lord of the Flies and The Goonies. I do have to wonder if greater participation in sports would lead to higher diagnosis rates in girls. I very rarely got up to breathing heavy as a kid or adolescent, and I still do it too rarely.

fMRI + orgasm = best studies ever

Whipple (2008) took fMRIs of women during orgasm, and confirmed the women's reports that orgasm was not the same in every woman. One particularly interesting point is that the women in Whipple's study had complete spinal cord injuries at or above T10 -- that is, above the spinal nerves that theoretically feed the genitalia. As Alexander and Rosen (2008) discuss in their review, there is increasing evidence that there is an additional "bypass" nerve system running to the genitals.

As discussed on 9/21/06, Canli and Gabrieli (2004) talked about how fMRI could be used to examine differences in men's and women's arousal patterns. More recent research indicates fMRI may also be useful in examining differences in orgasm.

---

Seriously, this is Difference Blog, not Women blog, but I'm finding so many stories about women lately that I really want to talk about. Does it feel disproportionately women-focused to you, lately? Mostly, I'm just jealous of Whipple's subjects who can orgasm through their powerful imaginations. I can't even imagine being able to imagine like that.

Hot stuff

A reader recently pointed out Klinesmith et al (2006) which showed that men added more hot sauce to a "taste sensitivity sample" prepared for another study participant when they handled pellet guns versus the game "Mousetrap." The reader was reminded (and so was I) of 3/16/07 when we discussed Evers et al's (2005) similar experiment with hot sauce which found that men were more likely than women to punish people with hot sauce. The 2006 study found that testosterone levels went up after handling the pellet gun, and that hot sauce aggression went up with it. However, Ayduk et al (2008) found no sex effects for hot sauce administration in a rejection/aggression experiment.

Ritter and Elsea's 2005 review provides a fascinating critique of the hot sauce paradigm: while it probably has some validity, due to the fact that spicy foods have been used in child abuse and assault cases, Ritter and Elsea argue that several aspects of the laboratory setting (mood induction methods, the demand to administer some hot sauce, or the lack of choice with any other method of retribution) may still prevent it from being an adequate measure of aggression in general.

---

One statement in the Ritter and Elsea review which caught my eye was that the hot sauce paradigm was "less likely to be interpreted as competitive." This has not been my experience with hot sauce administration, but maybe I'm abnormal. I suspect that I'm not the only one to feel that way, though: comments on the Cognitive Daily (2006) post on the Klinesmith study suggest that participants copied each other, if they saw other participants adding large amounts of hot sauce.

Women's History

A recent comment on one of the photographs in my Flickr photostream brought my attention to the Boston Women's Heritage Trail, a non-profit project by the Boston Public Schools (started in 1989) to raise awareness of the accomplishments of women. The Chicago Area Women's History Council is older, tracing its roots back to 1971.

On the national level, organizations exist to coordinate History Months for women. In the U.S., The National Women's History Project, started as a grassroots campaign in 1980, and resulted in the 1987 congressional recognition of March as Women's History Month. The Canadian effort was also locally initiated. Canadian Women's History Month is October, based on the month in which women gained the right to be appointed to the Canadian Senate in 1929.

---

As a kid, I was always sort of annoyed by the "_____ History Month" drives in school. My American history class in high school was divided into three sections: women's history, immigrant history, and black history. The unfortunate part was that no one ever taught us white-men's-history first, and so we were trying to place the events in context with not much more than Parson Weems mythology ("I cannot tell a lie" etc). In retrospect, however, I'm glad that they were making an effort. I was able to pick up the basics of American history along the way, and unless someone is focusing on it, I don't hear about the contributions of women and minorities. It still feels wrong that history instruction appears to be an either/or proposition, but if I had a better suggestion, this would be a much different blog, because I'd be pretty passionate about getting it out there.

Does your area have a women's history council? Have you ever looked for it?

WalMart's Back-To-School campaign: a table

Walmart's 2008 back to school ads have been playing for a couple of weeks:

Youtube views	Child gender	Age range	Mother's concern	Mother's solution	item purchased
781 views (Thu PM)	Girl	high school	"I can't introduce her to new friends"	"I can give her what she needs to feel good about herself."	a blouse
N/A*	Boy	junior high	"I can't do his report for him	"I can give him what he needs to succeed."	a laptop
518 views (Thu PM)	Girl	first grade	"I can't start the first grade with her."	"I can give her everything she needs to be excited about school"	a sparkly notebook

---

I feel like I'm being overly touchy about this, but I was really annoyed by the difference. I had seen the boy's commercial a couple of times, and I really liked it, even though I'm not a big WalMart fan. Monday I saw the high school girl's commercial for the first time: "what she needs to feel good about herself" really annoyed me, and so I looked for them on YouTube, and found the third example (the first grader). I'm also annoyed that the boy's commercial doesn't seem to have gotten onto Youtube (looked Monday and Thursday), but what can you do?

*Yahoo! Astrology (8/12/08), of all places, also seems to have noticed the girl/boy dichotomy here. At least they back me up on the wording of the boy's ad, since I can't link to video. Read the comments. They're... educational.

Marriage and Health

Previous studies have shown connections between married-status and improved health, especially for men (see 1/10/07). However, this effect has decreased over the past 30 years, according to Liu and Umberson (2008). Their study found that never-married men were approaching similar reported health rates as their married counterparts. However, health declines among those widowed, divorced or separated were found to have worsened.

---

That's pretty thrilling, actually. I mean, I don't think anybody was actually suggesting that the religious or social convention of marriage was causing an increase in health. It sure sounded that way sometimes, though, didn't it? So, I'm sure I'm not the first to say it about this article (since I'm writing this ahead of time for scheduled publication) but I guess it isn't better to have loved and lost.

Refractive Error Prevalence

Vitale et al (2008), in an analysis of data from the CDC's NHANES, determined that gender differences in "refractive error" (nearsightedness, farsightedness, or astigmatism) differed by age bracket. In the 20-39 age bracket, more women than men were nearsighted (40% to 33%). In the over-60 group, farsightedness was more common in women (12.9% to 6.6%), although the prevalence of having any refractive error was higher in men (66.8% to 59.2%). A similar study, by The Eye Diseases Prevalence Research Group (2004) found no difference between men and women on nearsightedness (after adjusting for age and race), but did find higher levels of farsightedness in women.

---

Funny, I'd always thought it was guys who got farsighted, and I can't tell you why I thought that. I am fairly desperately myopic (nearsighted). I enjoy letting other people look through my glasses and get headaches. It's a hobby. I have to wonder what affects these differences. Were the warnings from my grandparents correct? Do women ruin their vision by squinting at things? Do men prevent farsightedness by something they do? I keep hoping that aging-related farsightedness will correct my nearsightedness and I'll pass through "normal" on my way to another version of "nearly blind". I don't think that's how it works, though.

Rock Star Mortality

Bellis et al (2007) found that mortality risk for pop stars was significantly increased for the first 25 years of their fame. Bellis's team studied over 1,000 artists listed in the "All Time Top 1,000″ albums. Of these artists, 7.3% of the female stars and 9.6% of male stars had died.

Kendall (2004) suggests that celebrities (in his study, NBA players) misbehave more than average people because they are less replaceable, and feel they can get away with it. Whatever the reason for the health costs of fame, there appears to be significant interest in treating it: the peer-reviewed journal of Medical Problems of Performing Artists is in its 22nd year.

---

To stay with the rock star theme, this post is one from the vaults. I noted it, oh, six months ago or so, and kept meaning to expand on it. My first reaction is that this probably isn't a significant difference. My second is the question of whether male or female rock stars party harder? Women tend to die older anyway.

Sex testing of athletes

The Beijing Olympics began last Friday, and much has been made in the press over the "sex-determination" lab for testing female athletes (NYT, 2008). The practice of gender verification at the Olympics has been in place since 1968. The decision to have gender verification in Beijing is puzzling for two reasons. First, the decision to suspend gender verification at Olympic games was made in 1999 (Elsas et al, 2000). Secondly, the International Olympic Committee ruled in 2004 to allow transsexuals to participate in sports as their assigned gender if two years had passed since gonadectomy (IOC 2004). However, verification is still practiced in Asia, and resulted in runner Santhi Soundarajan being stripped of her silver medal in 2006. The IOC claims that this is not a return to mass testing, but will only be used on athletes whose status is individually challenged by an official (Yahoo! News, 2008)

---

I haven't seen anything about this in particular, but I wonder how high "above chance" the rate of sexual abnormalities is in Olympic athletes. The number of false positives that gender verification in sports came up with seems really high. Honestly, the part that I find most depressing is that only women are tested, but I can't think of a single Olympic sport that men compete in where a female history would be an advantage. Can you?

The most important meal

Widenhorn-Müller et al (2008) studied the effect of breakfast (vs no breakfast) in a boarding school. While all students in the "breakfast" condition reported feeling more alert, there was no difference in sustained attention between the breakfast and no-breakfast group. For boys only, breakfast appeared to induce more positive mood, and better visuospatial memory. However, boys under regular conditions may eat breakfast more often. Siega-Riz et al (1998) found a significant decline in all adolescents consuming breakfast (any food or beverage between 5:00am and 10:00am) between 1965 and 1991. The decline was sharpest in adolescent girls, which Siega-Riz et al attributed to attempts at weight control. Zullig et al (2006) seem to confirm this, because weight loss was associated with skipping breakfast for all race and gender groups in their study of adolescent breakfast skipping.

---

I'm amazed, but the only time I've really covered breakfast before is in the study showing that eating breakfast cereals is correlated with having sons (4/25/08). But here's my theory on why the girls didn't show benefits of breakfast but the boys did: their metabolisms were better adjusted to skipping breakfast.

I don't know why, but "adolescent breakfast skipping" sounds really poetic to me.

Work-life balance

Work-life balance is often presented as a question that pertains mostly to women. In a recent British survey, Professor Jacqueline Scott found a decline in the number of people (both men and women) who felt that it was possible for a woman to have both a family and a career (Telegraph, UK, 2008). Scott's findings are presented in her book Women and Employment: Changing Lives and New Challenges (2008). According to the Telegraph article, Scott that positive attitudes towards mothers in the workplace peaked in the 1990's and have started to decline.

However, clearly women are not the only ones interested in getting more time away from the office. A recent Australian survey, reported in News.com.au (2008), found that more than half of Australian workers would be willing to take a pay cut to work fewer hours: both men and women. Tausig and Fenwick (2001) found that being a woman did predict greater perceived imbalance between work and family, but that being a parent was the biggest family-related predictor. Hours worked was the greatest work-related factor.

---

You know, "being a parent" strikes me as one of those things that ought to have roughly equal numbers of men and women, even more so than the ratio of sexual partners between men and women (see 8/13/07) -- although I wouldn't be surprised to see a gender difference in people actually "parenting". I don't think I've ever researched that. The assumption of motherhood may make me want to gouge my eyes out, but it's probably not unreasonable.

2D mental rotation

Christova et al (2008) suggest that women perform as well as men with less brain tissue because their brains are more efficient. This study used a motor-spatial task on which men and women performed equally well. BOLD fMRI found that men were using 2.4x as much blood as women to achieve the same level of performance.

The task, after Georgopoulos and Massey (1987), involved matching a stimulus angle by manipulating a displayed line via a joystick: a two-dimensional rotation, as opposed to the three-dimensional object rotations discussed previously. As Christova et al admit, "the value of these results rests on the fact that the behavioral performance did not differ between men and women." Tagaris et al (1998) use the same task. Neither Georgopoulos & Massey nor Tagaris et al report any analyses by sex.

---

I started out excited by this paper. Really. I mean, a rotation task where women perform as well as men: cool! Except that the only experimental data I can find on the performance of this task by men and women is in this experiment, with four men and four women. I'm also not sold on their conceptual framework for why this is mental rotation - the participants move the joystick in the opposite direction of the stimulus, so theoretically they are mentally rotating the stimulus to the other side of 90°? I need a lot more convincing, because men have been shown to outperform women on MR so consistently in other tests.

Complementary Medicine

Gansler et al (2008) found that female cancer survivors were far more likely to have used a "complementary therapy" than male cancer survivors. Gansler et al's analyses included only cancer survivors who responded to at least 10 of the 19 complementary therapies on the list. Gansler told US News & World Report (2008):

"As more studies are done to evaluate effectiveness, we will want to know whether men are missing opportunities to use some effective complementary methods that are far more popular in women, or whether women use ineffective complementary methods more than men. Or whether some complementary methods are more effective for women than they are for men"

Gansler et al's gender results are consistent with an older British study (Downer et al, 1994) which found that female sex, younger age, and higher social class were associated with complementary therapy in cancer patients. Hedderson et al (2004) found that men's and women's motivations for using complementary therapy were largely the same: differential effects were only found for the use of dietary supplements.

---

I looked at differences in the sources men and women use for health information back in January (1/29-1/31: pt1, pt2, pt3). So, I'm not surprised that men are depending heavily on "allopathic" techniques for treatment of their cancers. Men tend to be distrustful of non-authoritative sources. I've written to Gansler for clarification of the exclusion criteria: I'm not sure if the study means that participants used 10 of 19 methods, or just filled out at least half the survey.

edit: Gansler confirms that respondents could answer yes or no, so it was only people who left items blank who were excluded. I feel much better. See comments for Gansler's response.

Leadership styles

Judy Rosener (1990) suggested that men and women were likely to use different leadership styles, although she is quick to point out that "interactive leadership should not be linked directly to being female, since some men use that style and some women prefer the command-and-control style." In Rosener's study, men and women in similar managerial positions were found to be making the same amount of money and to experience the same level of work/family conflict. This finding is surprising, given previous findings that even in the same jobs, women make less than men.

Rosener describes the differences between "interactive management" and "command-and-control" management like this:

Interactive Management (aka transformational management): "getting subordinates to transform their own self-interest into the interest of the group through concern for a broader goal. Moreover, they ascribe their power to personal characteristics like charisma, interpersonal skills, hard work, or personal contacts rather than to organizational stature.."

Command-and-Control (aka transactional management): "a series of transactions with subordinates--exchanging rewards for services rendered or punishment for inadequate performance. The men are also more likely to use power that comes from their organizational position and formal authority"

Rosener largely attributes the differences in styles to men and women taking different career paths. Women leading may often have experience from volunteer organizations, or have been promoted from staff positions, rather than having spent their careers as part of a hierarchical structure.

---

This amuses me a lot, because I used to try to use the transactional style (back when I was a woman) and it failed miserably. In my current job, I've definitely been trained (by women, now that I think about it) in the transformational style. The thing is, every manager I know who has used the interactive/transformational style has done so (in part) due to management training. Now I really want to survey the gender split of people who are in management trainings. Well, I have one data set: an enrollment list from a course I took last winter. With 9 women, 6 men, and me, this doesn't seem significant.

Website Gender Bias

Do you know whether more men or women visit your favorite website? Mike Nolet of Mike On Ads built a script that does, and estimates whether you are male or female based on your browsing history. The male-female ratio of visitors to websites is based on ratios reported by Quantcast US Site Rankings - weighted for "internet average" male/female ratio. The Quantcast list alone makes for some fascinating reading. Youtube.com, for example, does not differ significantly from the internet average gender ratio, although previous research has suggested that men watch more internet video (see DB 5/7/07).

---

Comments on Nolet's post seem to suggest the browsing estimator seems to have some accuracy. I think I've found a bug: Mike's script seems to weigh icanhascheezburger.com as a male-skewed site, while the Quantcast ratings show it has a strong female skew. Not as strong as cuteoverload.com, but pretty strong. Since I've already stated these examples, I don't think I have to tell my audience that your humble author came out as over 70% chance of being female.

Many thanks to frequent commenter and pal Astrogeek01 for pointing this out!