Talk:Sex differences in human physiology/Archive 1

I haven't been able to find a mention anywhere of the phrase "gender gap inversion." Is that an established phrase, as suggested in the article? Joyous 00:27, Jun 3, 2004 (UTC)

Edits for POV, stereotypes
I built on this article to explain the concept of a Gender gap while trying to approach more NPOV writing. Also, I perceived that some of the explanation and examples confused stereotypes (popular beliefs) with actual gaps. I think actual gaps are under discussion here.

Some of the specific changes I made were:


 * Eliding neologisms such as "gender gap inversion," "pro-male gender gap" and its counterpart. I couldn't find these terms used as such in Google, and the article content doesn't suffer without them.
 * Removed some unsubstantiated examples that were particularly questionable. They could be added back with proper substantiation.
 * Removed statement about "racial gap" and lifespan. It may be true but it doesn't add to understanding of the article's subject.

Really, many of the remaining examples require substantiation as well, but I didn't want to gut the article. Demi T/C 09:09, 2005 Mar 28 (UTC)


 * "An average man is taller than an average woman" - the filing of this strikes me as a POV issue. I can see people arguing that there are also benefits to being short. -- Smjg 17:57, 10 July 2005 (UTC)

"Some gender gaps favoring females are opposed by masculists." This seems a totally random POV comment. A masculist isn't someone who wants men to come first in everything. It's someone who favours traditional gender roles. As such, a masculist can, in theory, support or oppose individual gender gaps favouring male or female alike. OTOH, feminists are more likely to oppose gender gaps either way.... -- Smjg 14:34, 8 August 2005 (UTC)

You linked to masculists but didn't read the article. I'm a masculist, and I certainly don't favour traditional gender roles. I oppose them. For example, I don't think that it's always in a child's best interest to stay with their mother. Mullet 22:40, 19 October 2005 (UTC)


 * On reading that page a bit more, I'm actually rather confused at what masculism means. Can you find or think of a more accurate dictionary definition than the only one I've found? -- Smjg 14:42, 8 November 2005 (UTC)

Gender gap in aging
Is there a gender gap in aging? According to some sources, men age faster than women. Tedius Zanarukando 25 Apr 2005, 23:49 (EST).


 * Any relation to "Women live slightly longer than men in most countries"? -- Smjg 17:57, 10 July 2005 (UTC)


 * That may be possible. Aging may be a sign of being near the current maximum lifespan. It seems that aging tells how long the person may live. Decimus Tedius Regio Zanarukando 05:17, 18 January 2006 (UTC)

A few oddities
"Women are less likely to be in prison." Does this mean that women are less likely to be commit the crimes of relevance, or that imprisonment is less often the punishment of choice towards women? This needs to be clarified.

"Most sports are traditionally male." Is this "favoring neither males nor females" because there is nothing to stop females participating in sport if they want to? There remain disparities both ways nonetheless. Firstly that male sport gets an order of magnitude more media coverage than female sport, and so females are left out in this respect. OTOH I imagine that on average, girls aren't alienated for not being into sport to the same extent as boys are - how true is this? -- Smjg 17:57, 10 July 2005 (UTC)


 * Meanwhile, the way both this and "Video games are a traditionally male hobby" are written, they are pure stereotypes, so I think I'm going to remove them unless someone can come up with a better rewrite. -- Smjg 12:44, 11 July 2005 (UTC)

Moreover, the article doesn't touch on the differences between male and female clothing. I can think of a few things that can be said about this - I'll probably redress (no pun intended) this balance over the next few days. -- Smjg 17:57, 10 July 2005 (UTC)


 * Here's what I had in mind:
 * Male clothes are often better equipped with pockets.
 * Males are typically allowed to bare their chests in public.
 * A wider range of clothing styles is available for females, including both skirts and dresses and different kinds of tops.
 * Even within this difference, the female sections of clothing catalogues seemingly tend to be more comprehensive than the male sections. (In my time, finding some of the clothes I really like has proven tricky....)
 * Office dress codes are sometimes less strict for women, even to the effect of allowing female employees to dress more casually than their male counterparts.
 * Clothing for formal occasions also exhibits more variety on the female side, with males often expected to wear a suit whereas females may choose to wear something more suitable in warm weather.
 * What do people think? I'm also not sure if this has more Western bias than is desirable.... -- Smjg 12:44, 11 July 2005 (UTC)

Article Contains Lies
At the end of this article, the "80% of women...Home Shopping Network..." bullet point is completely biased, and I'm sure there are a few other biased points in it. In my opinion, this article needs to be completely redone, as it consists merely of a few seemingly random differences between male and female social status that are of little importance regarding anything.--Life 22:51, 28 July 2005 (EST)
 * Hi Life, the article may be merely a list of sometimes-trivial facts, but I don't think an NPOV tag is what we want, as the points seem to be from a NPOV, though they describe biases that favour one of the sexes. The Home Shopping Network statistic should have been added into the article along with a reference, but I don't see how it's biased.  Cheers, Nectarflowed T 02:57, 29 July 2005 (UTC)


 * I've removed "80% of women admit to voting for the favorite candidate of the Home Shopping Network in state and national elections", because it's obviously wrong. (I'm sure no one asked 80% of american women that question, let alone 80% of women). Now if somebody did a study and arrived at this estimate, please cite them and also consider whether the source deserves citing. --Glimz 09:17, July 29, 2005 (UTC)

Additions by Tedius

 * "In Eastern society, parents prefer to raise sons."
 * "Male school students are less likely to complain about dress codes."
 * "Men wait longer to marry than women."

Firstly, the way these are written, they seem to an extent to be tarring all members of the respective groups with the same brush. Secondly, what's your evidence?

And by the third, do you mean longer after birth, getting together, getting engaged or what? It may be true that in most marriages, the husband is older than the wife. However, since (in most countries) every marriage involves both sexes, this cannot logically be a matter of how long they wait. Couples get together, get engaged, and then get married at the same time. On this basis, the only way that husbands can be older is if men tend to choose future wives who are younger than themselves, or women tend to choose future husbands who are older. Quite a different concept from waiting longer to marry. -- Smjg 10:22, 28 September 2005 (UTC)

-- I don't think the following statistic should be under the 'gender gaps favouring women' subtitle: "By 2010, women are expected to control $1 trillion of the US's wealth through their husbands - BusinessWeek and Gallup." The wealth spoken of is in the hands of both the husband and the wife. I don't even think that this point addresses or identifies a gender gap at all. It certainly doesn't illuminate a fact of one gender's financial advantage over the other's. If anything, it could be re-worded and included in the opposite section, as it would seem women only have access to this money through men, while men would be the gender with primary access. The quality of this article does seem a little sub-par. 65.95.25.34 07:04, 1 December 2005 (UTC)nic

Merge with wage gap
I think this article should be merged with the Wage Gap...  most talk about the gender gap i've seen is concentrated on the labour market. Bringing wage gap into gender gap makes alot of sense. A few small bits of the wage_gap section that isn't to do with gender can be moved to economic inequality  thoughts? --kodemizer, december 2nd 2005

merge from economic inequality / gender descrimination
In economic inequality there contains a section under causes -> descrimination -> gender  that is not nessarily the best writen peice, but at the same time deals with subject matter than has more to do with the gender gap than with general economic inequality per se.. The economic inequality peice should still have a short description, but the main peice should live here.. thoughts? ---Kodemizer, december 2, 2005

Renaming article to gender differences
This article is not about the gender gap, it is about gender differences. Gender gap generally refers to the systemic differences in the outcomes that men and women achieve in the labor market. I think this is self evident enough for me to justify just going ahead and changing it... --kodemizer, december 3rd 2005.. if you disagree, sorry to offend..

Sex versus Gender
There seems to be quite a mix between differences based on gender (differences due to society), and those based on physical differences between the sexes. Should these be separated out and each grouped together in some way? Admittedly there are some where it's not clear whether the difference is due to sex or gender, but on the other hand it seems perhaps odd lumping "men have more pockets in their clothes" with "men have testosterone". Alternatively the article could simply be changed to clarify it's talking about differences based on biological sex and gender. What do others think? Mdwh 23:04, 20 December 2005 (UTC)

Seriousness?
I thought this article was intended to be serious, but I would never link to an article that explains things such as "Men's clothing have pockets".... / Fred-Chess 15:28, 23 December 2005 (UTC)

It seems to be a practical distinction to me. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.215.244.155 (talk • contribs) 15:10, 26 July 2006 (UTC)

Lots of edits: hope this is an improvement
Ok, I decided to “be bold” and did some reorganization and deletion:
 * Added a paragraph about nature versus nurture and average versus individual cases.
 * Deleted the item about pockets (POV: who says more pockets is an advantage? Maybe it’s a disadvantage, because you can never remember where you put your wallet!)
 * Added item about men’s clothing being more comfortable (reasonably non-controversial).
 * Added items relating to Janet Hyde’s meta-analysis of gender difference studies.
 * Added items about David Buss’s study on mate selection.
 * Added items about intelligence and a link to the “sex and intelligence” article.
 * Added item about the “glass ceiling” and relative levels of wealth.
 * Added item about men being incarcerated more than women. It is a fact that men make up a higher percentage of the prison population in most (all?) countries. Speculating about the reasons may be POV, but stating the numbers is not.
 * Added item about men being more likely victims of violent crime (other than rape).
 * Deleted the item about eostregen providing an advantage in making hair healthy and skin less wrinkled. I could find no sources to back this up. Some suggest that women are disadvantaged when it comes to skin aging because they have less collagen. This may be masked by women using moisturizers and other skin care products more than men. Anyway, if someone has facts and can back them up, they can put the item back in.
 * Deleted the item about women controlling wealth through their husbands (hard to see how this provides a comparative advantage for women).
 * Condensed the items on women’s clothing variety to a single item (all comes down to the same point: more variety).
 * Removed removed the item about women having fewer mental health problems, which is simply untrue. Added items from the WHO report on gender and mental health (roughly similar levels between men and women, althought specific problems such as depression and alcoholism are more common in one gender or another).
 * Added items about illiteracy and education.
 * Removed the sentence about affirmative action in relation to college numbers. This suggests that the increase in female numbers is mainly due to affirmative action, which is POV (other countries have had similar increases without affirmative action). Added information about college attendance in UK and Iran to make the item less US-specific.
 * After “there were more women than men who were doctors and lawyers” added “while there were more men who were engineers”.
 * Added a section about similarities between the sexes (important not to forget there are significant similarities).
 * Reorganized the lists a bit to group related items.
 * Added footnotes.

I think this is an important area but we need to avoid non-verifiable claims. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 87.192.248.235 (talk • contribs) 11:10, 12 January 2006 (UTC)

Life expectancy in Muslim countries
Women live longer than men in most countries (a notable exception is Afghanistan and other Muslim countries).

The way this reads, it suggests that men live longer than women in all Muslim countries, which is not true (see WHO countries list and check the figures for Indonesia and Egypt, for example). I changed this to include just Afghanistan and Pakistan. You can put in other examples if you can want (and can verify them). —Preceding unsigned comment added by 87.192.248.235 (talk • contribs) 15:10, 18 January 2006 (UTC)

Online Dating
I removed the following:

"There are more men than women in online dating websites. In general 60% of members are male compared to 40% female. Consequently males often find it very hard to solicit responses whereas females are usually inundated with emails from suitors."

This is inaccurate and oversimplified, with no supporting citations. To the best of my knowledge and experience, gender ratios vary greatly depending on the nature of the dating website. Sites which focus on sex and short-term flings (like AdultFriendFinder) have many times more men than women, while websites that focus on marriage and long-term commitment, like Eharmony, have significantly more women than men. Furthermore, the ratio also varies greatly according to age, with men outnumbering women in the 18-30 age range, and women outnumbering men in the over 40 age group. Thus, IMHO, there is no significant clear-cut gap favouring either gender here. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 88.152.18.244 (talk • contribs) 00:22, 4 February 2006 (UTC)

---

I removed the sentence: "Obviously, those odds are stacked strongly in favor of the women."

This is POV. If it's that obvious, let the figures speak for themselves!

Also, it's not that "obvious" that the odds are stacked in favor of a woman looking for a relationship on line. If the bulk of emails are from men looking for casual sex, they aren't going to help her. It may be that the odds are in favor of young women looking for hookups, but older men looking for long-term partners may have a better choice than women in the same situation. Not that different from "offline" dating, really. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 194.39.131.40 (talk • contribs) 09:41, 6 February 2006 (UTC)

---

I just did a quick survey of personal ads on new york craigslist. I found on one day there was 200 ads by women looking for men and 900 ads by men looking for women. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 66.65.122.117 (talk • contribs) 14:41, 6 February 2006 (UTC)

---

There seems to be some controversy over whether dating tendencies are relevant to Gender differences. I believe they are quite relevant. Americans spent half a billion dollars on internet dating. Hypothetically if one wanted to start an online dating website, one's market research would involve the demographics and trends. Its common knowledge in the online industry that the key to financial success of any internet dating site is maintaining a core level of female subscribers particularly in the 18-30 range. With that done the men will easily follow. Many sites often offer discounts and incentives to keep the female clientelle. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Chifumbe (talk • contribs) 10:38, 10 February 2006 (UTC)

Only for humans, right?
Just got here, from gender. Am I right in assuming that the present article talks only about humans? In that case it should say so. Arbor 07:33, 18 March 2006 (UTC)

Occupational deaths
Additionally, 92% of occupational deaths occur among men.

Do you have a source for this? I don't doubt it (far more men work in firefighting, fishing, construction work, and other risky jobs). But see Verifiability. Also, is this a worldwide figure or specific to one country or region?--Fionah 08:11, 26 April 2006 (UTC)

Found a ref myself and added it (I love google) :)--Fionah 09:10, 27 April 2006 (UTC)

POV of this article
I'm not sure what the purpose of this article is. It seems to be making a thinly veiled argument that men and women are essentially the same; and that they only differ in the aggregate, statistically. One one one, chances are, a man and a woman are likely to be equal in any significant way.

Perhaps the article point of view hinges on how "equal" (or "equality") is defined. Or maybe it simply was intended to reflect the point of view that all differences between men and women (other than average physical disparities) are the result of upbringing, culture, education, religion, and so on.

I changed the intro accordingly. If the change is reverted, that will tell me something (tacitly), but I'd much rather have explicit discussion. --Uncle Ed 14:57, 23 May 2006 (UTC)

I think it’s pretty NPOV on the causes: “The existence of a gender difference does not identify whether the trait is due to nature or environment.” There’s a brief subsection on Possible causes under Psychology, which gives equal weight to nature and nurture arguments. But other than that the rest of the article seems to present facts and figures without reference to why these differences may exist.

There is a lot of “on average” and “generally”, but there are v few differences (apart from reproduction as you rightly point out) that will hold for every single man and every single woman on earth. There are tall women, 100-year-old men, male teachers, female engineers, and husbands younger than their wives. This doesn’t mean the general rule is wrong, but it would be equally wrong to say all men are taller, all women live longer, etc.

I like the changes to the intro, BTW. It reads much clearer now. Fionah 06:41, 24 May 2006 (UTC)

Planets and people

 * "When it comes to comforting, the Mars-Venus concept is not only wrong, but harmful," MacGeorge says. "For the most part, men and women use, and strongly prefer, the same ways of comforting others – listening, sympathizing and giving thoughtful advice. Yet books like John Gray's 'Men are From Mars and Women are From Venus' and Deborah Tannen's 'You Just Don't Understand' tell men that being masculine means dismissing feelings and downplaying problems. That isn't what most men do, and it isn't good for either men or women."

I read both books cited. I did not see anything in them telling men to dismiss feelings or downplay problems. Quite the contrary: for example, Gray says that mean would be wise to show concern about feelings, particularly with women.

The news article also contradictis itself. First it cites MacGeorge as concluding that there is no significant difference between men and women (a variance less than 5% in science is generally considered too insignificant to warrant further study). Then it asks the reader, "So, where do gender differences come from?" 

Sounds like MacGeorge dislikes "Man Are From Mars" for some reason other than what the news article is telling us. Is she an ideological feminist, or what?

Unlike Tannen, who based her findings on actual conversations which she recorded and sometimes videotaped, MacGeorge merely asked people what their preferences were. This is like asking people at work whether they take drugs, rather than testing their blood or urine. --Uncle Ed 17:11, 23 May 2006 (UTC)

Here's what MacGeorge actually opposes - I hadn't read all the way down:
 * the notion that men and women communicate in such different ways that they should be regarded as members of different communication cultures or speech communities.

Neither Tannen nor Gray makes this claim, although Gray's metaphor can be misleading to those who haven't read his book. Neither author has said that male-female differences dwarf inter-cultural differences, such as the East-West divide. They are more like Miss Manners (especialy Gray), giving advice on getting along better within one's culture. --Uncle Ed 17:16, 23 May 2006 (UTC)


 * I'm not sure what this has to do with the Gender Differences article, which doesn't mention John Gray at all (his book is pop psychology, not research). AFAIK, there is no clear consensus at the moment about gender differences in language use, so the article reflects this. In The Blank Slate, Steven Pinker (definitely not an "ideological feminist") claims that men and women use language in much the same way. Fionah 06:54, 24 May 2006 (UTC)

Agreed: John Gray is not a research psychologist, but an practicing therapist (or showman?) and popular author. He has no "findings" to offer the scientific community. His only interest to our readers is what he declares to be so. That is, he's stating his point of view, like a politician or movie reviewer giving an opinion.

I'd like to see more in Wikipedia about how (whether?) men and women communicate differently. Do women say "We need to talk" more than men do? Are men more likely to drive around trying find a route on their own, while women are more likely to stop and ask directions? or is this just anecdotal, etc.

And what can we tell about "intrinsic differences" between the sexes, from the fact that there are different mixes of men and women in some occupations (in the US, anyway)? Are those who claim "men and women are essentially the same, there is no such thing as masculinity and femininity as innate aspects" correct? Or are those who claim the opposite, that men are "meant to be masculine" and "women are meant to be feminine" correct? (And how the heck are we supposed to get answers to these questions and then present them in accordance with NPOV policy at Wikipedia?)

Anyway, I'd like to start with a review of studies about language use, particularly in conversations spoken aloud. Tannen is the only researcher whose books I've read. She says there are significant differences. I read a news article about another researcher who disagreed with Gray, but Gray is not a resercher. And "self-reporting" is subject to bias: subjects tend to tell the interviewer what she wants to hear, perhaps. So where do we go from here? --Uncle Ed 14:26, 25 May 2006 (UTC)


 * Oh, I was hasty again. I didn't read this about various proposed causes of gender differences. Thanks for putting that in! --Uncle Ed 14:29, 25 May 2006 (UTC)


 * Do you think I covered all relevant viewpoints? I tried to keep it brief because the viewpoints themselves are discussed on other pages. I agree it is difficult to keep NPOV on this issue but saying "feminists say X" and "evolutionary psychologists say Y" gets around it.


 * Maybe you could do an article on Please Understand Me and link to it here? 10:27, 26 May 2006 (UTC)

Communication
On average, women speak 7,000 words per day, compared to 2,000 words for men.

Is there a source for this? I googled for “women 7000 words per day”, but all I found were blogs and unverified lists of factoids. Note: I am NOT saying this is untrue, I am saying that it needs to be verified.

Also, the statement could do with some context. Where was the study done? (e.g. was if in North America, Europe, Asia?) What language was spoken? (e.g. German speakers probably speak fewer words per day, what with all those long compounded words. And Spanish speakers may talk faster and so fit in more words per day.) What age were the participants? What was the situation? (See Tannen’s point about public situations vs home.)Fionah 10:27, 26 May 2006 (UTC)


 * Actually, it turns out the number was pulled out of thin air (or at least out of some self-help book). Most studies find either that men and women speak the same average number of words, or that men speak slightly more! See Sex-Linked Lexical Budgets on the Language Log. Fionah 10:21, 24 January 2007 (UTC)

Income disparity
Most of the intro for Economics probably belongs in the Income disparity article. I propose the following:


 * In many countries, there is a gender income gap which favors males in the labor market. For example, the median salary for U.S. women is 76% of that of U.S. men. However, a study found that U.S. women earn 98 percent of what men do when controlled for experience, education, and number of years on the job. See income disparity.

And then move the other information to income disparity or Male-female income disparity in the USA. For an example of something similar, see the Intelligence section on this page, where there is just a summary of the main points with detailed discussion on the sex and intelligence page.Fionah 10:27, 26 May 2006 (UTC)

Orgasm
"# Men's orgasm is essential for reproduction whereas female orgasm does not have any obvious function other than to be pleasurable."

I'm removing this, as it isn't (productive ejaculation can be had without orgasm, unless I truly misunderstand what orgasm is; it seems likely that the first is the only thing necessary for reproduction). Just found a reference. 24.16.251.40 19:54, 8 June 2006 (UTC) (Formerly 24.22.227.53)

How can one define a woman's orgasm to be typically more intense? Is that solely based on muscular contraction measurement, or upon subjective measurements of "pleasure"?

It also lasts considerably longer, and they can multi TrevorLSciAct 22:41, 3 June 2007 (UTC)

sex and intelligence
I removed the following from the "sex and intelligence" section:

'' In a study by C Davison Ankney from the University of Western Ontario, Ankney found that men on average, have a 100-gram advantage over women in brain weight. A study done in Denmark in the late 1990's documented that men have about 15 per cent more neurons than women. Other studies published showing that men have an advantage of 4 to 5 IQ points over women by early adulthood. ''

The reason is that this section is meant to be a summary of the current evidence from large scale studies of IQ and sex. Currently, most large scale replicated studies show no significant difference between average overall IQ scores of men and women. A few studies show some advantage for males, but these are discussed in the main "Sex and Intelligence" article.

The referenced study seems flawed because it focuses on SAT scores. Very low IQ people would not take SATs. Since males are overrepresented at the extreme ends of the bell curve (v low and v high IQs), this would eliminate the men who would bring the average down (v low IQs) while keeping the men who would bring the average up (v high IQs). Fewer women would be eliminated (since fewer would be in the low IQ group) but since they are clustered more around the mean they would not contain so many v high IQs to pull up their average.

Also, the relationship between brain weight and intelligence is not that clear-cut: men weigh more than women overall and so would be expected to have larger brains.

Fionah 09:07, 12 October 2006 (UTC)

I think that this should be reintroduced to the article. There is another study, this one by Manchester University, that indicates that there is a 5 point discrepancy, which begins at puberty:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/education/4183166.stm

If it is not reintroduced to the article, then the existence of such studies should at the very least be mentioned. Shining Arcanine 03:20, 25 February 2007 (UTC)


 * Maybe introduce it into the main sex and intelligence article? My question would be whether this study included people at all levels of IQ, including low IQs. Because of men's greater variability, if you cut out people below a certain level you will skew the average. Fionah 08:32, 26 February 2007 (UTC)

waist hip ratio
The literature on the subject of waist to hip ratio seems to make use of a unique method of denoting such a ratio by using a single decimal number like 0.7 for women and 0.9 for men as a 'ratio'. This is confusing since it really should be; 0.7:1 (the waist is 70% the circumference of the hips) for women and 0.9:1 (the waist is 90% the circumference of the hips) for men.

A ratio is the differential relationship between two quantities, so a ratio with a greater difference should be thought of as a greater ratio. However, in the case of WHR, the 'greater' WHR number is actually a smaller ratio (in normal terminology.) It really should be described as women having a greater WHR than men, but that would appear to conflict with the fact that the number 0.7 is smaller than the number 0.9, even though both numbers represent only half of their respective ratios.

I personally find this confusing since it goes against any other use of the term 'ratio' that I've seen. But it seems to be the norm for this particular ratio, probably because it is easier for the general public to handle a single number when reading diet books and trying to improve their WHR.

Oh well...

Doing the same thing over and over, expecting a different result. 10:51, 3 December 2006 (UTC) Nanisani

Agree it's confusing! That's why i added "that is, their waists are smaller by comparison with their hips". However, this has been removed as "redundancy". If it clears up confusion, i don't think it's redundant. Actually, to make it clearer, maybe we should have something like "Women have smaller waists in comparison to their hips (see waist-hip ratio)". Fionah 10:12, 4 December 2006 (UTC)

Women "somewhat" or "far" happier?
DarkSenel on 00:34, 19 April 2007 changed "Overall, women claim to be somewhat happier than men with their lives" to "Overall, women claim to be far happier than men with their lives". However, from the the Pew study that is used as a reference : "Women are somewhat happier than men with their lives overall, according to 38,000 interviews in 44 countries conducted by the Pew Research Center for the Pew Global Attitudes Survey... Women give their lives a better rating in 29 of 44 countries surveyed. In some countries the differences between genders is very small and in others it is quite significant. Women's greater satisfaction with life is pervasive in many of the less-developed regions of the world: in 7 of the 8 countries surveyed in Asia, 6 of the 8 nations in Latin America and all 5 nations in east and southern Africa. In particular, women are much happier than men in Japan, India, the Philippines, Pakistan and Argentina. In contrast, men and women in Western Europe and Canada are quite similar in the way they judge their lives." This indicates that "far happier" is an exaggeration. It should be simply "Overall, women claim to be happier than men with their lives" or "Overall, women claim to be happier than men with their lives in 29 out of 44 countries". This gives a much better summary of what the study actually found. Fionah 08:39, 19 April 2007 (UTC)

Images of female and male sexual characteristics...
I just wanted to discuss the two images for "Female Sex Characteristics" and "Male Sex Characteristics" in the "Physical differences" section. Firstly the labels are different sizes in each image when scaled to the same size, with the female images labels nearly impossible to read without clickling on it.

Secondly, I'm not sure these are the two best images to use to illustrate the differences in sex characteristics. I'm going to try to be as delicate as possible here so that I don't offend peoples' sensibilities.

Starting with the female image; it is lacking any body hair, which is an important secondary sexual characteristic (this is clearly labelled on the male image). Omitting it; regardless of today's cultural tastes, is a major omission for an encyclopaedia. Also in the photograph the model is in a rather bizarre pose; she looks a little confused and out of place, almost as if shes wondering whats going on. The labels are also a little bizarre and this image used on any other page would be confusing. For example; there is a label pointing to the shoulders that just says "shoulders". Thats not very useful; perhaps "narrower shoulders" etc would be more useful; something displaying a little comparative anatomy and reflecting the points raised in the text.

The male figure shares a number of the same issues. However one extra major issue is the setting; a naked man standing in a field. I'm sure it's all very artistic but it's not very necessary, and it makes it look odd when coupled with the woman's picture with her standing on a white background (with a strange pose). Also the fact the man has tattoos may be confusing to some readers; I doubt people would think tattoos are a secondary sexual characteristic of the male but you can never be too careful!

When studying anatomy and displaying it in textbooks; persons are usually displayed in the "anatomical position"; this is standing straight, facing forward, with the arms by the persons side and the palms also facing forward. Perhaps a photograph or an illustration of a naked man and woman in the anatomical position would be more appropriate.

Finally there is a very artistic but ultimately pointless image of a man, pregnant woman and child. As nice as it is; it add little more than decoration to the page and at the very least should probably moved elsewhere so that the text is easier to read.

What do people think? Anyone know of some better images that could be adapted for purpose? --DomUK 21:01, 19 May 2007 (UTC)

pov tag (sex differences are NOT gender differences)
This article has sections on sex differences that seem to speak to the title of the article. However it also has sections relating to gender-feminist propaganda about gender-differences that are both POV and have nothing to do with sex differences. This confusion is what feminists have been banking on for political power plays as they pervert and the meaning of both terms. I added a pov tag here until we take 'gender' out of this article and focus on sex differences alone. Sex is a biological or medical determined characteristic. Gender which might include sex is much more complicated. To confuse sex and gender as is being done so shamelessly in the mass media today is how feminista-feminists rape the language for their ideological and political agendas. Thus the pov tag on the article. Please spare us another Assault on Reason here.

I also pov tagged the Economics section for the shameless study of so-called 'sex' differences the here. To claim the sex (or gender!) CAUSES social, political or economic differences is an assault on reason too. Personal choice, personal competence/incompetence and a host of other factors play into these effects. Please remove the gender-feminist propaganda from this article and focus us on legitimate sex differences as is done so well in the top of the article.

To be at all credible, this article needs to study sex differences that are directly associated to sex rather than making the ludricous leap to include differences attributable to gender, culture, preference, and/or a host of other associated causes that often overlap. As the definition clearly states: A sex difference is a distinction of biological and/or physiological characteristics typically associated with either males or females of a species in general. There are no socio-political distinctions in this definition. 128.111.95.45 00:22, 28 May 2007 (UTC)
 * First off, please assume good faith. The editors of this article are not necessarily "feminista-feminists" intent on pushing their "propaganda".  Your comment was a little unclear, but I'm assuming you object to the inclusion of things like "clothing" and "consumer behaviour" in this article, as they are more closely related to gender and culture than to biological sex.  However, these sections focus on observable differences between sexes (without claiming either that they are determined by biological differences between men and women, or that they are down to culture).  Perhaps these sections are irrelevant to the topic, but I don't see how they are POV. Cowpepper 12:45, 28 May 2007 (UTC)


 * No-one's been back to discuss this in two weeks, so I'm removing the POV tags. Cowpepper 15:17, 11 June 2007 (UTC)

I must agree completely. The two images are inconsistent with one another. The images should be deleted without a replacement.

"Techincally [sic], women tend to shop more than men."
What is this supposed to mean?

-- Smjg 15:08, 28 July 2007 (UTC)
 * they spend more money in an average year?
 * they spend more money in an average shopping trip?
 * they spend more money in an average visit to one shop?
 * they acquire a greater mass of shopping in ?
 * they spend more time shopping in ?
 * they make more shopping trips in an average year?
 * they make more visits to individual shops in an average year?
 * they visit a wider variety of shops?
 * they visit a wider variety of kinds of shops?
 * something else entirely?

It is supposed to mean: they buy more cloths and shoes. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 66.131.215.51 (talk) 07:36, 21 February 2011 (UTC)

split article
article is split into sex and gender differences. gender is related to sociology and sex related to biology. see 2 sections(pov comment) above for details Lara_bran 05:59, 29 July 2007 (UTC)

However for every male that sires two offspring, another male fails to sire an offspring.[5].
I'm a new poster, but AFAITC this can't be true. And yes, I know, this is original research, and not my field, but it's also basic math. If the population size is 60 with 30 males and 30 females, then every man could have a mate and sire 2 offspring, resulting in the next generation having 60. If 15 males each sire [b]four[/b] offspring then the other 15 wouldn't sire any assuming the next gen is 60. Tall Dan 16:32, 29 July 2007 (UTC)


 * This depends very much on culture.
 * There's nothing wrong with the statement, mathematically, though. It does not say that half of males sire 2 while the other half sire none.  It simply says that, if a male sires 2, then some other male will sire none.  For example, if you had 5 males, one could sire 2, 3 would then sire one, and the remaining one would sire none.
 * In any case, it's just an average and therefore two, one, and zero is not the actual breakdown, as you know. In some families, there may be a dozen children, while in others there are none.--BThetford (talk) 23:22, 20 July 2008 (UTC)

Other health differences
It is mistakenly said that women are longer in the torso (shorter legged)than men. This is not true. Women do have a lower center of gravity, but their legs are longer relative to torso length as compared to men. Weight is in the hips. Men carry more weight in the shoulder and torso area. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 141.161.230.125 (talk • contribs)


 * Source?--BThetford (talk) 23:18, 20 July 2008 (UTC)

Cleanup tag - Removed 27 Oct, 2008
Article needs cleanup. Content needs to be rearranged. Notes section has redundant entries, needs removals. Lara_bran 04:01, 14 August 2007 (UTC)


 * I think this has largely been taken care of, now, no? Can we remove the banner yet?--BThetford (talk) 23:17, 20 July 2008 (UTC)


 * Alright, fixed. I cleaned up all the notes, and made them consistently formatted in the usual wikipedia style. View my edit. I had to remove about 30 websites that were mentioned as a reference, but had no citation in the text. I removed all of them rather than try to find their point and insert it back into the article.  Hovever, a lot of the information was not of high value, in my opinion, and involved things like incarceration rates, online dating, and intelligence.


 * As a result of my copy-editing, i have removed the cleanup template, which is appropriate, i think. (The objection is so old, it should be raised again if there is a current problem). —fudoreaper (talk) 05:39, 27 October 2008 (UTC)

Height
I would apprieciate- and I think others would too- more info on height differencial- what the statistics are and how they might vary from place to place or time to time.

IceDragon64 22:41, 15 August 2007 (UTC)

Fiction more worthy than facts, celebrities more than scientists
"Biological text books state that humans have a high degree of sexual dimorphism, but closer study by science fiction writer David Brin (2004) has shown that this is not the case.[Full citation needed] Brin also published a popular essay, 'Neoteny: A Paleo-Anthropological Speculation', in 1996." So the opinions of a science fiction writer should overrule that of scientists? Would anyone agree that this should be deleted? 80.0.130.44 (talk) 23:17, 30 January 2008 (UTC)


 * Depends, I mean writing science fiction doesn't preclude you from making a thorough literature review for example. A citation would be necessary to make this kind of judgement. Could this whole notion of "closer study" be derived from the following sentence in the mentioned essay 'Neoteny: A Paleo-Anthropological Speculation'?


 * "Let me also emphasize that Homo sapiens appears less riven by sexual dimorphism than most species, [..]"


 * If that's the case one should certainly look for the source Brin relies on for this statement.
 * Also, "biological text books" is much to general I'm convinced that they vary in their presentation of the topic. --88.72.201.11 (talk) 16:30, 2 June 2008 (UTC)

Removing Sentence
I am removing the sentence that sais "women give birth to babies; men do not."This sentence is sexist and unnecessary. That sentence implies that men are worthless and nothing. Keep adding that sentence and I will keep on deleting it.SoundBlast (talk) 00:42, 15 February 2008 (UTC)


 * How can stating a biological fact be sexist? --88.72.201.11 (talk) 16:30, 2 June 2008 (UTC)


 * Not only that, but the article is ENTIRELY about differences between the sexes. Simply stating that one does something the other does not makes no value statement at all.
 * There are plenty of statements about men in there, too, such as having larger, denser bones. Does that mean women are weak and worthless?  Absolutely not.--BThetford (talk) 23:16, 20 July 2008 (UTC)


 * It only implies that men are worthless IF you believe that someone is worthless if they don't give birth. THAT belief might be sexist ... but the statement "women give birth to babies; men do not."  is just a biological observation and contains no value judgment.

Hoping To Help (talk) 12:27, 15 November 2008 (UTC)

Skin
It is obvious that women can stand the cold better but I read somewhere that men can stand the heat better, because of their slightly thicker skin. I also read that women have a higher chance of getting skin cancer because of their thinner skin, which the sun penetrates easier.

I think that should be added. SoundBlast (talk) 01:30, 20 March 2008 (UTC)

What's obvious is that you have no idea what you're talking about. Why would women stand the cold better? Why would thicker skin allow men to stand the heat better? Men can stand the cold better because of: 1. Thicker skin; 2. More muscle mass = more calories burned = more heat —Preceding unsigned comment added by Dnx-x1 (talk • contribs) 23:37, 26 January 2009 (UTC)

Additionally, men on average are larger which means they have proportionally less surface area compared to mass. So a smaller proportion of a man's body is exposed to the outside. Which contributes to men having a harder time cooling themselves.Hoping To Help (talk) 11:11, 2 April 2009 (UTC)

reaction time
Maybe it should be mentioned, thet men have a higher average reaction time then women. The logical explanation for this is that because in acient times hunting and figthting was primarly a task for men. --Qaywsxedc (talk) 17:59, 21 June 2008 (UTC)

You mean lower average reaction time, and I assume you're talking about reaction time as in the time between a visual stimulus and taking action on that stimulus. Anyway, the assumptions about the reasons for this sort of thing being related to hunting tend not to hold up very well, if you ask modern sociologists.--BThetford (talk) 23:13, 20 July 2008 (UTC)

Reproduction
It says mistakenly that women "produce" one egg per month. This is not true, they are born with a finite amount of embryos. I'm not sure how to edit this.


 * I guess it means that one egg per months moves from they place where the finite amount is stored to a place where it has a chance of being fertilized. --Uncle Ed (talk) 21:13, 27 September 2010 (UTC)

Long hair on the head is in NO WAY a secondary sex characteristic!
You know, if the pictures were about fully clothed little girls, and the gender would be hard to determine by the look, something like that is ok. But we see naked men and naked women who are really easy to recognize as such. This article is about primary and secondary sex differences. Adding "characteristics" such as long hair is only confuaing. There is no real scientific agreement about how determined "female" and "male" behaviour is by the physical gender. But we know for sure, there`s no genetic impulse to cut hair or let it grow, nor an evolutionary advantage. In some cultures, both men and women let their hair grow, in others, both cut it down, there were/ are even cultures where men wear their hair long and women short! As with animals like lions, or peacocks, for many animals males, hardly females, have some kinds of manes or colourful feathers. Including humans, e.g. the male beard. Head hair grows down lifelong unless it`s cut. Just as simple.

Hell, why not give the women also a bow, a pink skirt, petticoats, à Barbie doll, and some food to cook and dishes to wash, so we can clearly not doubt they`re female?!

For christ`s sake, they`re naked, we can see doubtless what gender they are, so why even use these clishees??

That`s not what this page is about, even if there are certain tendencies in behaviour, if letting hair grow was one of them we`d see it in other cultures.

Hell, if children red this...

This is a scientific article, and the one about sexism is another one.

Why didn`t they use a man and a woman, looking rather alike, same hairstyle, same hair colour, similiar faces etc., and besides that they still are recognizable as men and women.

It`s not just predujuce, it`s UNNESSECARRY! —Preceding unsigned comment added by 91.62.9.129 (talk) 15:47, 4 July 2008 (UTC)

You know... If you don't like the pictures used, you could always change it to pictures you feel are more appropriate. Agreed that gender stereotypes based on very western culture is bad for an article about physiology, of course, but complaining about it doesn't help much.--BThetford (talk) 23:09, 20 July 2008 (UTC)

It's Wikipedia. If you don't like it, change it. Personally, I don't think its a big enough deal to come up with a new graphic. But if you do, I doubt anyone will care enough to change it back, either. Nerrolken (talk) 07:26, 6 October 2009 (UTC)

"high degree of sexual dimorphism"???
"Biological text books state that humans have a high degree of sexual dimorphism"... No reputable text would say this. High sexual dimorphism is found in things like some species of anglerfish or spiders with the female 100-1000 times more massive than the male. Humans have a moderate degree - in that the sexes are easily visually distinguished - but less than most primates. Human males lack the enlarged canines of many primate males; the size difference between human men and women is less than that between gorilla males and females, or those of Australopithecus afarensis; we lack coloration differences like a mandrill or uakari. Sexual dimorphism in non-human primates generally correlates with terrestriality and large size -- we are large (the second largest living species), strongly terrestrial primates, yet with quite low levels of dimorphism. Therefore, I deleted the sentence. (David Brin is a good SF writer, at least sometimes, but he's not an expert on this anyway.) Vultur (talk) 06:35, 1 July 2009 (UTC) Oh, also: "moderate degree of parental investment compared to most other mammals"? No way. Humans, at least in monogamous cultures, have much higher parental investment than most mammals -- most animals, period. This is because human children are dependent so long. I didn't change this one yet, though, in case someone will explain what was intended. Vultur (talk) 06:38, 1 July 2009 (UTC)

Endurance
At one point the article states -

On average, men have a greater capacity for cardiovascular endurance. This is due to the enlargement of the lungs of boys during puberty, characterized by a more prominent chest.

Then two points down it states -

On average, women have more endurance than men.

Can someone clarify what is meant by the second point as it seems vague and conflicting with the first. In what way do women have more endurance than men? What type of endurance's are there other than cardiovascular without getting too abstract? 194.165.29.88 (talk) 15:23, 2 July 2009 (UTC)

Degree of dimorphism redux
From the caption of the "Expecting_family.jpg" picture: "Humans are a moderately sexually dimorphic species, but less dimorphic than most non-human animals." That is contradictory. If we are less sexually dimorphic than most non-human animals, then we're not "moderately" dimorphic, we're "slightly" dimorphic - what are we comparing it to besides non-human animals?

I don't want to be overbold and change all the "moderate" references to "slight" (though it would be far more accurate, especially if we're comparing humans primarily to other primates) - but I'm going to change that sentence to be non-self-contradictory. In the bigger picture, though, what do we want the article to say here? That human sexual dimorphism is minimal, slight compared to other primates (I would think this is the best option), moderate, or what? Vultur (talk) 10:58, 7 September 2009 (UTC)

The caption now says "Humans show some sexual dimorphism, but are less dimorphic than most other primates." I didn't see a need to compare human sexual dimorphism with that of, say, lampreys or black widows. Vultur (talk) 11:02, 7 September 2009 (UTC)

Language lateralization
"females have language functions evenly distributed in both cerebral hemispheres, while in males they are more concentrated in the left hemisphere"

There's actually a study which concentrates on disproving this: http://brain.oxfordjournals.org/cgi/content/abstract/127/8/1845

Thus I think the statement should be removed. --Clayrat (talk) 12:49, 12 June 2010 (UTC)

Intelligence Citations Bibliography for Articles Related to IQ Testing
The specialized article linked to from this article touches on the issue more, but I see that this article too mentions IQ testing. You may find it helpful while reading or editing articles to look at a bibliography of Intelligence Citations, posted for the use of all Wikipedians who have occasion to edit articles on human intelligence and related issues. I happen to have circulating access to a huge academic research library at a university with an active research program in these issues (and to another library that is one of the ten largest public library systems in the United States) and have been researching these issues since 1989. You are welcome to use these citations for your own research. You can help other Wikipedians by suggesting new sources through comments on that page. It will be extremely helpful for articles on human intelligence to edit them according to the Wikipedia standards for reliable sources for medicine-related articles, as it is important to get these issues as well verified as possible. -- WeijiBaikeBianji (talk) 23:12, 2 July 2010 (UTC)


 * I have another source list, Genetics and Human Biology Citations, posted for the use of all Wikipedians who have occasion to edit articles on human genetics and related issues. You are welcome to use these citations for your own research. You can help other Wikipedians by  suggesting new sources through comments on that page. -- WeijiBaikeBianji (talk, how I edit) 02:31, 19 November 2010 (UTC)

Mental and emotional differences
Which article discusses mental and emotional differences between the sexes? Are there such differences, or is this just pop psychology or a literary fad? In "My Fair Lady" there's a song which asks, "Why can't a woman be more like a man?" Sigmund Freud famously asked, "What do women want?"  John Gray wrote Men are from Mars, Women are from Venus implying via metaphor that male-female differences were as great as beings from different planets.

There has been lots of advocacy insisting that men and women are inherently quite different, as well as (largely feminist?) advocacy insisting that men and women are inherently the same and that it is merely social pressure which makes them different. Has anyone studied what if any the inherent differences are, or (for those who hypothesize that there are no such differences) what specific social forces cause the sexes to have different thoughts, feelings and wants?

If I'm in the wrong article tell me. Or if there's no such article yet, please volunteer to help me write it. --Uncle Ed (talk) 21:10, 27 September 2010 (UTC)

The work of Simon Baron-Cohen would be helpful in this regard, especially his 2004 book, The Essential Difference. In the book, behavioral difference if neonates and young infants are cited, well before any significant socialization has occurred. User:Homebuilding —Preceding undated comment added 19:51, 3 February 2011 (UTC).

Please review WP:MEDRS.
I see that there has been a lot of edit-warring here about hair color and eye color as traits that vary by sex. That section of this article needs much better sourcing. This is about a human genetics subject, so the applicable sourcing guideline is reliable sources (medicine), which will point the way forward to identifying reliable sources for resolving the edit war. Careful sourcing is especially important when editors aren't agreeing with one another. -- WeijiBaikeBianji (talk, how I edit) 02:29, 19 November 2010 (UTC)

Brain and white matter/grey matter
Ok, there's two sentences here:


 * In 2005, Haier et al. reported that, compared with men, women show more white matter and fewer gray matter areas as related to intelligence.[43]
 * In total and on average, females have a higher percentage of gray matter in comparison to males, and males a higher percentage of white matter.[46][47]

On a casual read, these sounded nearly contradictory. Maybe they're not--one talking about number of areas, the other talking about total amount. But it's very confusing to read. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 70.158.189.225 (talk) 22:16, 3 January 2011 (UTC)


 * I think that the point Haier is making in his 2005 study is to relate gray and white matter to intelligence between males and females, not to compare the percentage of matter. Does that make sense? Here is the full text:


 * We examined the relationship between structural brain variation and general intelligence using voxel-based morphometric analysis of MRI data in men and women with equivalent IQ scores. Compared to men, women show more white matter and fewer gray matter areas related to intelligence. In men IQ/gray matter correlations are strongest in frontal and parietal lobes (BA 8, 9, 39, 40), whereas the strongest correlations in women are in the frontal lobe (BA10) along with Broca's area. Men and women apparently achieve similar IQ results with different brain regions, suggesting that there is no singular underlying neuroanatomical structure to general intelligence and that different types of brain designs may manifest equivalent intellectual performance.


 * --Aronoel (talk) 22:43, 3 January 2011 (UTC)

No discussion of behavior
The article seems limited to anatomy, shouldn't it be discussing behavior?--Babank (talk) 18:39, 4 April 2011 (UTC)
 * What would you like to add? Martin Hogbin (talk) 22:58, 4 April 2011 (UTC)


 * Stuff that's covered on sex and psychology: Intelligence, Mathematics, Memory, Spatial abilities, Aggression, Emotion, Empathy. We'd give a summary and give a  link.--Babank (talk) 20:42, 5 April 2011 (UTC)


 * No discussion of psychology either. The article concentrates on physiology and takes purely a biological perspective. So I propose moving it to Sex differences in the human body or Sex differences in human physiology. --Uncle Ed (talk) 15:12, 23 April 2011 (UTC)


 * I think Babank's solution is good. --Aronoel (talk) 14:52, 25 April 2011 (UTC)
 * Babank has not offered a solution, merely raised a question. Babank, why not add some of the material that you consider that this article needs, supported by reliable sources, of course. Martin Hogbin (talk) 15:57, 11 September 2011 (UTC)


 * Agreed. A few books to add relevant material re sex differences (all written by Ph.Ds in the respective fields):  "Male, Female" by Geary, "Sex Differences" by Mealey, "Why Sex Matters" by Low, What Women Want - What men Want" by Townsend, "Sex Differences in Cognition" by Halpern, "A Mind of Her Own: The Evolutionary Psychology of Women" by Campbell, "Evolution's Empress" by Fisher, "The Evolution of Desire" by Buss, "The Male Brain" and "The Female Brain" both by Brizenden.   Memills (talk) 18:20, 19 December 2012 (UTC)

Validity of Strength Data
Reference [5] links to http://www.springerlink.com/content/l47235487q162675/, a study using a control group of 8 men and 8 women. It may be best if a more conclusive study can be found or if the corresponding information in the article be removed.

Differences in personality
The article doesn't mention diferrences in personalities between the sexes, although that seems to be the most important issue to me. --87.145.251.227 (talk) 15:31, 21 April 2011 (UTC)
 * See the sub-article Sex and psychology. --Aronoel (talk) 15:38, 21 April 2011 (UTC)

Contradictory facts on mental illness
The article first states this:
 * It has been argued[by whom?] that the Y chromosome is primarily responsible for males being more susceptible to mental illnesses.

And later this:
 * Overall rates of mental illness are similar for men and women.

Unless I am missing something, this is a contradiction. The first statement is unsourced. The second statement is from a report by WHO. Should the first statement be removed?

213.67.51.68 (talk) 22:39, 6 July 2011 (UTC)


 * Yes, unless and until a suitable sources is provided. Martin Hogbin (talk) 15:58, 11 September 2011 (UTC)

Replacement of image
I suggest that the image in the introduction should be replaced with a new one. Everyone is welcome to participate in the discussion at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Anatomy. Mikael Häggström (talk) 03:44, 6 October 2011 (UTC)

Yes, for god's sake, can we get a better representation of the two genders? Those models are atrocious looking. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 96.241.216.175 (talk) 03:07, 24 October 2011 (UTC)

The new one isn't much better .... XD --81.100.44.233 (talk) 13:05, 24 December 2011 (UTC)

Yeah I also think the old models were more accurate. Averagejoedev (talk) 17:04, 28 January 2012 (UTC)

I agree that the old models were better representations. If possible, can we revert the change or find another set of models (with possibly more diversity)? (talk) —Preceding undated comment added 17:08, 11 December 2012 (UTC) Also, the diagram of the female reproductive system is severely lacking. Where are the clitoris, labia majora, labia minora, urethra, etc? If we could find a better more accurate (and detailed diagram) that'd be great. (talk) — Preceding unsigned comment added by Tmshates (talk • contribs) 17:16, 11 December 2012 (UTC)

Positionality/Sexism
I think it would be valuable for authors to keep in mind the necessity to take a balanced, gender-neutral approach to their contributions.

Many parts of this article are majority written from a male perspective or orientation, for example descriptions under the size/weight/body shape or skeleton and muscular system (Males, on average... Men are... Men weigh... Men's brows... Male skin... etc etc), and most paragraphs begin with description from the male.

This is quite pernicious and authors should try to neutralise their own positionality when writing, since it tends to posit the male as 'normative' from which the female differs.

Simmyymmis (talk) 16:04, 18 November 2011 (UTC)


 * I do not see how 'Males weigh about 15 % more than females', 'men are taller than women','men have a larger waist in comparison to their hips... than women' or 'Women have a larger hip section than men' posit the male as normative. Martin Hogbin (talk) 14:10, 24 December 2011 (UTC)
 * I am also struggling to see how this article takes a male viewpoint. Do you have a specific suggestion on how you would like to reformulate the examples you mentioned to be more neutral? Averagejoedev (talk) 17:09, 28 January 2012 (UTC)

If it can't be neutral then it should be deleted for Anthropology. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 124.148.247.133 (talk) 16:30, 29 January 2012 (UTC)

I agree this article has a heavy male-centric bias. Many contributors neglect to consider counterpointing studies to their male-centrically expressed ones, or to offer findings that suggest for example, females may be physically stronger than males, perceived 'physical' differences are conditioned, etc (those findings do exist). That would be a way to introduce some neutrality. As it is, some pretty gender essentialist claims are put down as 'the facts' - generalistic differentiation between body ratios, skull shapes and even skin thickness without offering conclusive proof - and all other facts or findings that don't fit this model are edited out/moved elsewhere as if to be framed as alternative "theory". You cannot separate the two. That is what I think has contributed to the massive imbalance of this article.Just comes across as biased, inaccurate and actually offensive, how do you even start to dismantle it? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.180.72.245 (talk) 16:10, 8 September 2012 (UTC)

"Science and Technology Studies Perspective on Sex Differences in Humans" section
User:Scsoclass has made a single edit to Wikipedia which consisted of adding the long section "Science and Technology Studies Perspective on Sex Differences in Humans" to this article. It reads like a POV personal essay and is full of strange expression like "Studies have also referenced binaristic endocrinology and genomics research which ignores intraspecies similarities in hormones and genotype." Also, this is the wrong article for this debate which is already discussed extensively in several other articles like Sex and psychology, Gender role, Social construction of gender difference, Gender, and others. As such I am WP:BOLD and removing this section. Acadēmica Orientālis (talk) 16:46, 22 March 2012 (UTC)

But aren't they overlaps that are instrumental to (and therefore inseperable from) this topic? Most of this article reads like a POV essay. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.180.72.245 (talk) 00:03, 9 September 2012 (UTC)

Feminist propaganda and lies
I am sorry but this article is full of feminist propaganda and lies. It claims that basically men have more muscle mass than women only because they work out more, which is one of the most ridiculous thing I have ever read on Wikipedia. This has no scientific value at all, and is just a way to promote a feminist agenda. Also the article is full of damage control from a feminist point of view, that try to undermine every "superior" physical male trait like height, strength and muscle mass, instead of being objective and using a scientific approach. Also I find that there is too much emphasis on the whole intersex thing, which has its own section, and is not really relevant here. I think it needs a clean-up. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 184.162.169.69 (talk) 08:59, 18 December 2012 (UTC)
 * If you have any scientific sources relevant to those topics, we'll be happy to use them. Kaldari (talk) 19:25, 18 December 2012 (UTC)
 * He is right that absolutely bonkers feminist opinions are given prominent placement in the strength section. Leyk, et. at. (2007) compared grip strength between two very large samples of men and women and a sample of elite female athletes from sports requiring good grip strength. In the general samples, 90% of women were weaker than 95% of men and while the female athletes were significantly stronger than normal women, their average grip strength was only on the 25th percentile of male's grip strength and the strongest woman of all had grip strength placing her at the 58th percentile of male grip strength. From Leyk (2007): "the strength level attainable by extremely high training [for women] will rarely surpass the 50th percentile of untrained or not specifically trained men". OneTimeComment 3495873657 (talk) 11:53, 24 December 2012 (UTC)
 * Thanks, I've added that to the article. Any other suggestions? Kaldari (talk) 05:58, 26 December 2012 (UTC)
 * Female here. It is certainly absurd to state that "men have more muscle mass than women only because they work out more." But, at the time of IP 184.162.169.69's complaint, the Strength, power and muscle mass section did not only attribute men being stronger due to "working out"; the "being more physically active" pieces were in reference to some cases. This link shows what the section stated. That section is better now, at the time of this post by me. Flyer22 (talk) 19:41, 26 May 2013 (UTC)

Car crash data
'In fact, for every 100,000 US drivers, men are three times as likely to be killed in an automobile accident.' Am I missing something here or does this not make sense? 90.211.77.40 (talk) 06:34, 11 February 2013 (UTC)
 * I have changed the sentence and added a source needed tag. An editor had added quite a lot of unsourced material to this section, that I now have removed.  Lova Falk     talk   08:27, 11 February 2013 (UTC)

Removal of baseless references
There are quite a few sections of text on this page that are completely baseless. I do not believe they give any proper facts nor show any verifiable study. I tried to manipulate it but screwed up and believed that I really should come here to discuss the issues. The references are [1] and [15] Birke, Lydia. The Gender and Science Reader ed. Muriel Lederman and Ingrid Bartsch. New York, Routledge, 2001. 306-322


 * "Sex differences are also increased or decreased according to societal situations"
 * "Males, however, are socially pressured to enhance their upper body muscles, leading to a wider difference in upper body strength"

I would like to know peoples thoughts on the validity of these statements. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Ajmanos (talk • contribs) 05:15, 15 March 2013 (UTC)
 * Intuitively, I would say that the first sentence is true (even though I wonder about the use of societal instead of social). There are certain situations (for instance, drinking and flirting in a bar), in which sex differences will be more pronounced than other situations (for instance, solving a problem together). The second sentence sounds more as an author's personal theory. However, I don't have access to the source.  Lova Falk     talk   13:27, 16 March 2013 (UTC)

I'd like to make it a note that this is not an article about sociological differences in the sexes.72.208.211.248 (talk) 13:53, 21 March 2013 (UTC)

Bone density
"Males have denser, stronger bones, tendons, and ligaments."

Currently this sentence requires a citation. Indeed it should, because this paper (which I don't currently have time to read through) seems to contradict this, or at least in terms of bone density.

Can someone offer an opinion on this? Should we change it? Eric Leb 01 (Page &#124; Talk)  23:30, 19 March 2013 (UTC)
 * Based on the abstract, the article seems to show that:
 * * Males have 26-45.5% more bone mass
 * * Males have 2.2-20.5% higher areal bone mineral density (aBMD)
 * * There are only small differences in volumetric bone mineral density (vBMD), but it is 0.6-4.8% higher in females
 * Since the last measure is deemed more accurate, it seems correct that males do not have denser bones. However, they do have stronger bones (since they are heavier). Koyos (talk) 10:28, 30 March 2013 (UTC)

Request for comment from editors
These pages are looking really great, and I was wondering if I can get the input from the editors here on a related matter, the organisation of sexual differentiation-related articles on Wikipedia. I'm not sure if there is a relevant Wikiproject, so I have pinged the editors individually on the conversation at WP:ANATOMY, here: Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Anatomy

Kindly, --LT910001 (talk) 07:29, 5 April 2014 (UTC)

Sex Ratio
You should explain why there tends to be more females than males in most developed countries, giving some examples of the countries in which this occurs. Explanation is needed on why the 100:101 ratio exists. Rather than including a link to a human sex ratio wikipedia page maybe list examples of countries with greater ratio differences and some with no differences. There may be some countries with more females than males, so it may be important to go further than just giving the source. Furthermore, why have you included human sex ratios in this article on human physiology?? It isn't quite relevant so this should be removed. Psuncl (talk) 16:06, 3 February 2016 (UTC)

Evolution of sexual dimorphism in human voice
I've added some more information from the Puts (2006) article, referencing them. I've given the two different types of sexual selection and why they cause the differences in male voices to occur. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Psuncl (talk • contribs) 13:08, 10 February 2016 (UTC)

Male/female
Starting discussion on male/female vs man/woman in article. Common practice is to use the former when referring specifically to anatomy (and is common in guidelines like APA and AMA).  Eve rgr een Fir  (talk) Please &#123;&#123;re&#125;&#125; 08:02, 3 March 2016 (UTC) Also a consistency issue given that most of the article uses male/female.  Eve rgr een Fir  (talk) Please &#123;&#123;re&#125;&#125; 08:06, 3 March 2016 (UTC)


 * Agreed. "Man" and "Woman" usually refers to adults anyway. Sex differences in human physiology are not solely about adults. Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 23:25, 3 March 2016 (UTC)


 * I see that this section is related to a dispute concerning . Truthdefender2015, I don't understand your point regarding the LGBT community, but do read WP:Activism. Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 23:29, 3 March 2016 (UTC)

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