So, at work this week, I arrived at a meeting early. I'm often the only person in the meeting without kids, but this particular meeting, I seemed to be the only one without high-school-aged kids. The discussion of choice was teaching them to drive, and one woman said "I hate driving with my daughter. It was never like this with my son. I think boys are just more natural drivers." And another woman immediately agreed, based on her experiences with her own kids.
This was a couple of days ago, and I still haven't figured out what the hell I could have said. I felt like saying that I was a terrible driver, and I'm still not a comfortable one, but I feel like that's agreeing with them, because I was a girl at the time (not that this group necessarily knows that). I felt like saying that if boys are better drivers, why are their insurance rates higher? I felt like saying that drawing a conclusion about genders based on your two children is completely ridiculous.
What I did was sit there silently and be uncomfortable, and I noticed that the (one) other man in the room didn't say anything either. When women express sexist stereotypes, how can we help?
Wednesday, January 27, 2010
Thursday, January 14, 2010
Sexual numbers, revisited
This morning, on the way to work, I was thinking about the "differences in average sexual partners" problem again, in reference to Gale's 2007 mathematical proof that the average for men and women must be the same. I thought of a couple explanations for differences in self-report that may not have anything to do with social pressures.
First, there is the chance that men are reporting the same woman more than once. It does not seem implausible to me that a man could count the same woman as three separate "conquests", while that woman would define their relationship as "on-again-off-again dating." Anecdatally, I believe it's not at all improbable to forget someone you've had sex with. Boy, was that an awkward conversation.
Another question I wondered about was the definition of "sex." I have rarely encountered heterosexual men who spend a lot of time thinking about what the word "sex" means. I'm wondering whether anyone has looked for gender differences in what "counts". I would actually expect a dose-specific effect, where the more experience you've had, the more things count as sex, but wouldn't be surprised to find out that dose-specific effects vary by gender; i.e. that men with a lot of experience count fewer contacts as sex while women with a lot count more. It would be foolish to discount social pressures for this option, but I'm not sure they are necessary to explain it.
Finally, there's record-keeping, which I would have guessed would favor women in terms of reporting higher numbers of partners. I have not encountered many men who admit to keeping a list of their conquests. Nearly all the women I've spoken to about it admit that they have at least one such list, often annotated with additional detail like location, types of contact, etc.
Mostly, I suspect I have trouble accepting the self-report explanation due to my personal selection bias. I don't spend a lot of time around guys who I feel are likely to inflate their numbers, or around women who I think would lower theirs. It's probably a bit of self-delusion, as is the idea that just because I forget having sex with people, it's probably not that uncommon. Honestly, I find any theory that leaves me as an outlier fairly suspect. I'm just not that special.
Diffblog also available on LiveJournal.
First, there is the chance that men are reporting the same woman more than once. It does not seem implausible to me that a man could count the same woman as three separate "conquests", while that woman would define their relationship as "on-again-off-again dating." Anecdatally, I believe it's not at all improbable to forget someone you've had sex with. Boy, was that an awkward conversation.
Another question I wondered about was the definition of "sex." I have rarely encountered heterosexual men who spend a lot of time thinking about what the word "sex" means. I'm wondering whether anyone has looked for gender differences in what "counts". I would actually expect a dose-specific effect, where the more experience you've had, the more things count as sex, but wouldn't be surprised to find out that dose-specific effects vary by gender; i.e. that men with a lot of experience count fewer contacts as sex while women with a lot count more. It would be foolish to discount social pressures for this option, but I'm not sure they are necessary to explain it.
Finally, there's record-keeping, which I would have guessed would favor women in terms of reporting higher numbers of partners. I have not encountered many men who admit to keeping a list of their conquests. Nearly all the women I've spoken to about it admit that they have at least one such list, often annotated with additional detail like location, types of contact, etc.
Mostly, I suspect I have trouble accepting the self-report explanation due to my personal selection bias. I don't spend a lot of time around guys who I feel are likely to inflate their numbers, or around women who I think would lower theirs. It's probably a bit of self-delusion, as is the idea that just because I forget having sex with people, it's probably not that uncommon. Honestly, I find any theory that leaves me as an outlier fairly suspect. I'm just not that special.
Diffblog also available on LiveJournal.
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