CHAPTER 2 Are Women Better than Men, or Vice Versa?
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women are better than men.
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story about men being found to be superior to women in anything,
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Men Are Not Cost Effective
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Are Men Necessary?
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CcccccMAUREEN DOWD
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“Future generations might ask why a man can’t be more like a woman….
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women are now the most powerful engine of global growth.”
Note:ANCORA
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women make better investors
Note:ANCORA...MA XCHÈ GLI INVESTITORI NN SONO ANCORA TUTTI DONNE?
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men had done a few good things in the past,
Note:FLEBILE CONCESSIONE...MA...LA DONNA AVREBBE FATTO CMQ MEGLIO
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On television, when commercials pit men against women, the women always win.
Note:TELEVISIONE...PEGGIO CHE ANDARE DI NOTTE
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My Three Sons and Father Knows Best depicted fathers as intelligent, competent, caring human beings,
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Most Hollywood fathers are simply buffoons and caricatures.
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find a show that makes the woman look stupid while the man looks wise or kind.
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Sometimes, to be sure, both parents are depicted as stupid, but if only one parent is depicted as wise and kind, it is almost always the mother.
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“masculinist” was bad and “feminist” was good,
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this can all be dismissed as propaganda, as political correctness, as fear of boycotts, as mere fiction and poetic license.
Note:MA PROBABILMENTE
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Alice Eagly
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people do indeed think men and women are different.
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“the WAW effect.”
Note:WOMAN ARE WONDERFULL...COME VIENE XCEPITA LA DONNA OGGI
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this is not the biased view of a small coterie of man-haters,
Note:QUALCOSA CHE RIGUARDA TUTTI
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women are better people than men.
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men still outnumber women as top achievers in some domains.
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When men do worse than women, people say it’s because women are better at this or that. When men do better than women, people say it’s because women are oppressed,
Note:IL PROBLEMA DEI NS GIOVANI
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It Wasn’t Always Thus
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multitasking.
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if you search for actual scientific evidence the conclusion is dubious.
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no difference.
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recent evidence suggests that multitasking—doing several things at once—mainly leads to doing a worse job at all of them.)
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If someone had asserted that men were better at it, immediately there would have been skepticism
Note:A PARTI INVERTITE IL MITO NN SI SAREBBE MAI DIFFUSO
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the “man bites dog” principle.
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COSA STA SOTTO QS DINAMICHE
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They think people are still surprised to hear about women being superior to men.
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people do like to hear news that confirms their stereotypes,
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in the past, most people thought men were better than women
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In essence, we have been rebelling against the assumption of male superiority
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Prevailing Views About Men and Women
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Up till the 1960s, psychology focused on men and used men as the model
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Periodically psychologists would suggest that one or another general principle might be slightly different for women. These differences sometimes took the form of implying that women lacked a bit of something,
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in the 1970s there was a brief period of denying that there were any real differences between the sexes.
Note:SECONDA FASE...LA CULTURA SPIEGA TUTTO
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If we could eliminate prejudices and discrimination
Note:LA SPERANZA...
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gender inequalities and even gender differences were all due to socialization
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enlightened parents
Note:FIGURE DI MODA
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Since the late 1970s, the field has largely taken the view that women are superior, and men are an inferior copy. In essence, it is the same approach that was used before 1960, but with the genders switched. Now women are the model
Note:TERZA FASE
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men better than women, no difference, and women better than men.
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These shifts in theory came about more from political than scientific factors.
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scientists climbed on the feminist bandwagon.
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The early feminists wanted equality, and it served their goal to deny that there were any real gender differences. But female chauvinists were among them, those who resented and disliked men,
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Gradually the feminists in gender studies abandoned the idea of equality.
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The Puzzling Thing
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How could such a dramatic switch occur in such a short time?
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an aspiring science such as psychology loses credibility when it just shifts from one theory to the opposite
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psychology’s switch mirrored what was happening in the society at large,
Note:PARTE DELLA RISPOSTA....CI CONCENTREREMO SUL RESTO
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Women and Science
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In January 2005, Lawrence Summers,
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he didn’t actually say anything that constituted oppression
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His crimes were crimes of thought.
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TABÙ
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He wondered whether there were more men than women at the highest levels of intellectual
Note:LA SOLA DOMANDA...
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The only debate was as to how severely he should be punished
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there might be more men than women with the high level of innate ability required
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Before he resigned, he had to go beyond apology
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Louann Brizendine, in her book The Female Brain, says Summers was “dead wrong”
Note:REAZIONI....TERMINI FUORI DAL LINGUAGGIO SCIENTIFICO
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there is a small difference between average male and female scores
Note:I DATI....IN PARTE POSSONO ANCHE ESSERE PORTATI DAGLI ACCUSATORDI
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hardly enough to explain the severe gender imbalance
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Average IQ scores are about the same in men as in women.
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(Throughout childhood, girls score higher than boys, and then the boys catch up and move very slightly ahead in adulthood.)
Note:DINAMICA
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Patriarchy—the idea that culture is a conspiracy by men to oppress women
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Strictly Speaking
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What Dr. Summers said was that at the high end—where the math and science genius-level intellects are found—there are more men than women.
Note:MA COSA DISSE SUMMERS ESATTAMENTE?
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a surplus of men at the high end could also mean that there are more men at both extremes.
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The crucial test case, therefore, is to look at the extreme low end.
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researchers study mental retardation far more than they study giftedness.
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There are more mentally retarded boys than girls.
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as you move from the mildly retarded levels to the most severely retarded, the gender difference gets bigger
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the same pattern found with genius: as you go from mild to moderate to extreme, there are fewer and fewer girls relative to the number of boys.
Note:GENIO
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All those retarded boys are not the handiwork of patriarchy!
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Nor is it some unlucky stereotype or the product of biased socialization.
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If the oversupply of retarded boys is not the result of men defending patriarchy, then quite likely the oversupply of genius boys isn’t either.
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influence of Mother Nature produces both extremes.
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There are plenty of female geniuses, just like there are plenty of mentally retarded females.
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Dr. Summers was quite right,
Note:IN QS SENSO
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Men at the Extremes
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Ttttttttt
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Just as more men than women are self-made millionaires, more men than women end up in prison.
Note:PATTERN VISIBILE IN SOCIETÀ
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height also show the male extremity pattern.
Note:MA ANCHE IN NATURA...
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What about personality?
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the Positive Psychology Center at the University of Pennsylvania,
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Men outnumber women at both extremes on these measures. Whether we are talking about kindness versus cruelty, curiosity versus closed-mindedness, wisdom versus immature pigheadedness, self-control versus self-indulgence, or humility versus narcissism,
Note:ESITO
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“Big Five” dimensions. On these, the experts do not find greater variation among men than women.
Note:ECCEZIONI
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Damn Lies and Statistics
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Even if men and women are exactly equal on average, almost paradoxically, you can get statistical data showing a difference between the male and female averages. All it takes is to use some kind of measure that is restricted at one end.
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Let’s start with grades in college.
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The highest possible grade in most colleges, or what statisticians call the ceiling, is an A.
Note:C È UN TETTO X QS I RAGAZZI SONO MEDIAMENTE PIÙ SCARSI....CAUSA INFLAZIONE NEI VOTI
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the low-achieving males will pull the male average down.
Note:MENTRE I MIGLIORI INCIDONO POCO SULLA MEDIA
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The result? Women will get better grades than men, on average.
Note:ESITO INGANNEVOLE
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The average performance quality was exactly the same
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salary.
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With salary, the problem is the floor.
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the average inputs are exactly the same for men and women:
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There may be a minimum salary, but there is no maximum.
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These differences are not temporary conditions that will go away. Nor are they problems needing to be solved. These differences will be permanent.
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women score higher grades than men in college and earn lower salaries.
Note:LA CONSEGUENZA....CORRETTA MA INGANNEVOLE
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the higher earning power of men is not taken to mean that men are better workers than women. It is usually ascribed to some kind of evil conspiracy by men (patriarchy), and many people quickly think the gender gap in salary is proof of male wickedness and the oppression of women.
Note:ESEMPIO DI EQUIVOCO
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in principle, one could just as well draw the opposite conclusions.
Note:VALIDA ANCHE LA CONCLUSIONE CONTRARIA: UOMINI DISCRIMINATI A SCUOLA
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My point is that neither conclusion is really justified.
Note:TESI
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Revisiting the Contradictory Stereotypes
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how psychology in particular and Western society more generally could have switched from one prejudice to its opposite in a little more than a decade.
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Most of them have some fairly sizeable amounts of truth. Research by Lee Jussim
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PRIMA UNA COSA SUGLI STEREOTIPI
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most people aren’t bigots and are even somewhat careful
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they try to establish whether their stereotypes are true but not whether they are false.
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confirmation bias.
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That’s where male extremity comes in. It is ready-made for producing opposite stereotypes, by working with the confirmation bias.
Note:E QUI IL PATTERN ENTRA IN CAUSA...CONFERMA E SMENTISCE MA ALLE SMENTITE NOI NN DIAMO PESO
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you will be easily able to find plenty of real and valid examples to support your belief.
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Want to believe men are superior to women? Easy.
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Want to believe men are inferior to women? Easy.
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men really are better AND worse than women.
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The Theory We’ve Never Tried
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Different but equal
Note:LA NUOVA TEORIA DEGLI ESTREMI
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Cultures exploit men and women differently. And they do this for a practical reason. Men and women are different and hence are useful to culture in different ways.
Note:TESI
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if the genders are different, then successful cultures will figure out which gender is better suited to which of its tasks, and assign them thus.
Note:CULTURE EFFICIENTI
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equality not by sameness but by tradeoffs.
Note:TRADEOFF
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Gender and Tradeoffs
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taking care of babies and fighting in battles are not fully compatible.
Note:SPECIALIZZAZIONE
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cultures need both of those jobs to be done.
Note:ESIGENZA
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Babies need to be watched constantly and fed every day,
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Battles may require moving around frequently and unpredictably, taking chances, getting hurt, doing without regular meals and/or sleep,
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A gentle, loving nature may be best suited for taking care of babies, but it may be counterproductive on the battlefield.
Note:INCOMPATIBILITÀ
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an important point: tradeoffs.
Note:QUESTO ERA SOLO UN ESEMPIO
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fixing one problem often creates another.
Note:OGGI VOGLIAMO UNA LEGGE X TUTTO A TUTELA DELL EGUAGLIANZA TRA I GENERI
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there are real differences
Note:NELL EGUAGLIANZA COMPENSATIVA
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Every time you hear of one gender being better at something, stop to think what is on the other side of that coin. What inferiority is tied to that superiority?
Note:CONCLUSIONE SAPIENZIALE
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One Size Doesn’t Fit All?
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Culture can reduce the effects of nature,
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QS VALE SEMPRE
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Small natural differences in inclination may become giant differences in society,
Note:EFFETTO VALANGA
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women are all kept at home
Note:ESEMPIO
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Biologically based differences are put there by evolution.
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This is why it is implausible that one gender is innately better than the other across the board.
Note:PENA ESTINZIONE
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Every time you hear that one gender is better than the other, ask yourself: Why would nature make one gender better than the other? Why would it preserve that difference,
CONCLUSIONE SAPIENZALE @
