Il contributo delle donne all'umanità

Non tutto è uguale nella storia dell’uomo, le eccellenze esistono.

Tutti noi possiamo rendere migliore la vita a chi ci sta vicino, tuttavia, ci sono alcuni “grandi geni” che hanno reso la vita migliore all’intera umanità.

Il relativista nega: tutto è relativo, per lui. Il “meglio” e il “peggio” non esistono. 

Contro chi  nega l’unica via è dettagliare. Cosa intendere per “grande conquista dell’umanità”? Ecco, di fronte al caso concreto negare o relativizzare diventa sofistico.

E’ quello che fa Charles Murray nel suo “Human Accomplishment: The Pursuit of Excellence in the Arts and Sciences, 800 B.C. to 1950”.

La prima tesi del libro è quindi chiara: le eccellenze esistono:

… In their effect on the individual’s freedom to pursue happiness, the creation of prosperous and free societies is the greatest of all achievements by humans on behalf of other humans….

Seconda tesi: le eccellenze non sono vaghe, sono cose concrete dettagliabili in un inventario:

… book’s first thesis: the dimensions and content of human accomplishment can be apprehended as facts…

Si assume che nel valutare le eccellenze artistiche e scientifiche i fatti siano separabili dalle opinioni.

Si deve poi procedere ad un inventario specifico. Murray considera il periodo dall’ 800 avanti Cristo al 1950 dopo Cristo. Il suo inventario è assemblato ricorrendo alle enciclopedie più prestigiose in ogni campo delle scienze e delle arti…

… I have assembled inventories that contain the people and events most important to the story of human accomplishment in the arts and sciences from –800 to 1950…

L’inventario non deve soffrire eccezioni e comprendere l’ opera dell’intera umanità…

… In this chapter, as for the European role in the preceding chapter, I document the reasons for concluding that the inventories fairly represent the role played by people who were not males and not white…

***

Alcune domande sorgono. Per esempio: come mai la donna ha contribuito tanto poco all’eccellenza umana?

Esempio…

… Just as only two percent of the mathematics significant figures were women, two percent of all the significant figures were women—88 out of the 4,002 persons in the inventories…

La prima donna dell’inventario…

… The earliest woman to appear in the inventories is the Greek poet, Sappho of Lesbos, in –6C. A thousand years later comes the next woman, the natural philosopher Hypatia of Alexandria…

Prima donna nelle arti visive…

… The first woman to qualify as a significant figure in the visual arts is Wen Shu (1595–1634) of Ming China…

Prima donna nelle scienze…

… The first woman to qualify in any of the scientific inventories after Hypatia is astronomer Caroline Herschel (1750–1848), sister and colleague of William Herschel…

Prima donna nella musica…

… The first and only woman in the music inventory is French composer Germaine Tailleferre (1892–1983)…

Nella filosofia, poi, non ci sono donne.

In parte il contributo irrisorio è dovuto all’esclusione ma nel XIX secolo le cose sono più complesse, le donne godono di una graduale parificazione formale. In questo senso il parallelo con gli ebrei risulta utile…

… The dearth of women in the inventories until 19C and 20C reflects near-total exclusion, by law and social pressure, from the possibility of participating. But the legal emancipation of women, which began in 19C at about the same time as Jewish emancipation, took even longer to complete….

Eppure il contributo da irrisorio “sale” a minimo. Un progresso davvero esiguo…

… During the most recent half century we are examining, 1900–1950, women still constituted only 5 percent of significant figures in the hard sciences, 3 percent in mathematics, 7 percent in medicine, and none in technology. In the combined arts inventories, women constituted 5 percent…

Le donne, pur presenti nelle varie discipline, di solito non hanno posizioni apicali. Giusto qualche eccezione qua e là…

… Murasaki Shikibu, the author of Tale of Genji, with the third-highest index score in Japanese literature, is the lone woman… Marie Curie, who won Nobel Prizes in both chemistry and physics, is the only other woman who has an index score higher than 18…

Conclusioni: le fonti più attendibili indicano uno scarsissimo contributo delle donne…

… In short, inventories in the arts and sciences, based on multiple sources, almost all of them written in the last few decades, producing highly reliable indexes, tell us that women constitute only a little more than 2 percent of all the significant figures, fewer than 5 percent of the significant figures in the first half of 20C, and that even the top-ranked women are, with the rarest exceptions, well back in the pack of the distributions in their fields…

***

Le fonti possono essere combinate come si vuole senza che la conclusione cambi.

Facciamo l’esempio di una fonte considerata…

… The Dictionary of Scientific Biography as a Benchmark in the Sciences…

Definizione di figura significativa…

… The definition of significant figures is based on consensus…

Stando solo a questa fonte le conclusioni sarebbero state ancor più radicali…

… Relying exclusively on the DoSB would have led to the conclusion that 0.7 percent of all the significant figures in mathematics and the hard sciences were women, instead of the 1.9 percent actually designated…

Per non sbagliare si è stati generosi anche sulle definizioni in gioco…

… If the selection rules used to augment the number of women are applied to men as well, the proportion of women will remain effectively unchanged, even drop…

Eppure, se andate in libreria, troverete volumi che parlano a lungo del contributo delle donne alla nostra civiltà. Ma che donne troverete in quei volumi? Ecco un esempio…

…. 1. Some women with significant scientific accomplishments but whose work postdates 1950… 2. Educators who taught science… 3. Pioneers, the first women to get a degree… 4. Translators and popularizers of scientific works… 5. Women, usually amateurs, who collected data that were used by scientists… 6. Activists in women’s rights and social reform whose profession was in medicine… 7. Wives, sisters, and children of famous male scientists… 8. Women with accomplishments ancillary to science though not involving scientific discoveries… 9. Women who were directly engaged in scientific professions and conducted substantial original research…

I dati sono talmente chiari che anche errori cospicui nei conteggi non inficerebbero la conclusione.

Anche i Nobel, l’indicatore spannometrico più diffuso, conferma.

***

Gli ebrei hanno una storia parallela a quella delle donne. Vediamola più nel dettaglio…

… In a practical sense, legal equality for Jews first occurred in the newly formed United States, where Jews were given full rights under federal law, though full protection at the state level had to wait upon the equal protection clause of the Fourteenth Amendment in 1868.7 France and the Netherlands emancipated their Jewish populations in the 1790s. Throughout the first half of 19C, the rest of Western and Central Europe evolved toward more tolerant policies without actually granting full legal equality. In England, Jews faced comparatively few legal restrictions after mid-18C, though it was not until the Promissory Oaths Act of 1871 that the last remnants of discriminatory law were revoked. The revolutions of 1848 saw civil rights granted (though not necessarily enforced) in most of Austro-Hungary and Germany. Bismarck completed the emancipation of Prussian Jews in 1869. Emancipation of Italian Jews began in the Piedmont in 1848 and ended in 1870 in Rome. Switzerland granted emancipation in 1866. In Russia, which in 19C also meant Poland, events moved the other way. The assassination of Alexander II in 1881 intensified long-standing Russian anti-Semitism…

Ma la reazione alla mutata condizione è stata ben diversa…

… What happens? “The suddenness with which Jews began to appear…is nothing short of astounding,” writes historian Raphael Patai. “It seemed as if a huge reservoir of Jewish talent, hitherto dammed up…

Dal 1800 al 1950 l’emersione di figure ebraiche eminenti è stata prorompente, al punto che la razza è sovra-rappresentata nell’inventario delle eccellenze…

… In every case except astronomy, Jews are disproportionately represented. The period 1870–1950…

***

Le cose non cambiano di molto se la medesima indagine viene condotta dopo gli anni cinquanta.

Cosa pensare?

La spiegazione puo’ essere ambientale o biologica.

Probabilmente tra qualche decennio sapremo molto di più sulla genetica. Per ora, che dire?

E’ doveroso segnalare che gli ostacoli ambientali non sono esattamente i medesimi per donne ed ebrei…

… Part of the answer is that the nature of the obstacles facing Jews and women differed. Winning the legal battle could not have nearly the liberating effect for women that it had for Jewish males…

I diritti formali sono bastati ai secondi ma non alle prime. La donna ha almeno tre ostacoli ulteriori…

… A woman trying to take advantage of her newly won legal rights by entering a profession had to be prepared to make three new sacrifices…

Una donna in certi ambienti è una bizzarria che potrebbe sentirsi a disagio…

… First, she had to accept being an oddball, which, depending on her situation, could mean being the object of curiosity, ridicule, scorn,…

Meno tempo per il matrimonio…

… Second, she had to confront the reality that to pursue a career would automatically reduce the likelihood of marriage…

Meno tempo per i figli…

… Third, even if she found herself in a good marriage, she had to confront another reality: Pursuing a career at full throttle, as first-rank accomplishment demands, is at odds with being a full-time mother…

Si tratta di ostacoli che permangono indipendentemente dai diritti…

… Employers continued to prefer men over women, pay them more, and promote them higher… Husbands continued to discourage wives from pursuing careers that would compete with their own…

Il conflitto tra carriera e maternità è forte oggi come ieri…

… anecdotal evidence indicates they were not much less prevalent in 1950 than they had been earlier. The conflict between career and motherhood had not even lessened… The central importance of motherhood means that many women do not want to jeopardize the opportunity to become a mother…

Si diventa “grandi” e si producono “eccellenze” proprio negli anni in cui si diventa madri…

… The years crucial to realizing great achievements have been precisely those years during which women are sexually most attractive, best able to find mates, and best able to bear children…

Essere mamma ed essere papà è ben diverso…

… Rather, it is argued, the emotional distractions of parenthood are far greater for most mothers than for most fathers…

La divisione materiale dei compiti incide poco ai nostri fini…

… However equally the physical burdens of child care are divided, the woman is likely to spend much more of the rest of her time thinking about the child’s needs than the man does…

Qui, infatti, non si parla semplicemente di “lavoro”, si parla di eccellenze, ovvero non di semplici lavoratori ma di gente maniaca, perfezionista, impegnata anima e corpo in quel che fa come in una missione…

… we are not talking merely about motherhood versus career or about juggling jobs and children. When we discuss accomplishments at the level of the people in the inventories, we are commonly talking about perfectionist, monomaniacal…

E che dire della biologia?…

… The most ambitious and controversial explanation for the disparity between accomplishment among men and women is based on biological differences…

L’evidenza empirica ci dice che, di fatto, l’ eccellenza è dominio del maschio in ogni società studiata…

… empirical observation at the core of this view is that in human societies around the world, men have without exception routinely held the top positions…

Qualcuno ritiene che questa sia una caratteristica universale…

… In 1970, sociologist Steven Goldberg published The Inevitability of Patriarchy, in which he asserted that these characteristics were universal… In 1993, Goldberg published a new statement of his theory entitled Why Men Rule…

In casi del genere il culturalismo propone spiegazioni complicate, la biologia spiegazioni semplici…

… Using social construction to explain why human societies have been universally constructed according to these sex differences in role and attainment requires complicated arguments. Using biology to explain them requires simple ones…

L’aggressività e la competitività  per giungere al vertice giocano un loro ruolo…

… Many of these differences are argued to cluster around male-female differences in aggressiveness, broadly defined…

Anche a parità di media statistica nelle varie performace che a noi interessano, gli uomini tendono ad occupare gli estremi…

… It is men who go to the extremes, compete ruthlessly, and, in whatever field they take up, are going to achieve the best and the worst… Although the mean IQ of men and women is apparently the same, the variability of male IQ is higher…

Un piccolo quadro delle differenze tra i generi…

… Women tend to do better, for example, in a variety of verbal skills; men in a variety of mathematical and visual-spatial skills. The latter may explain a conundrum: Brain size is reliably correlated with IQ; men and women have different mean brain sizes; but men and women have similar overall IQ.24 Some large portion of those extra brain cells in men may be devoted to three-dimensional processing, the largest and most consistently identified male cognitive advantage… the male advantage corresponds to degree of abstraction involved in an art…

Ma perché queste differenze? Le spiegazioni evoluzioniste sembrano le più semplici.

Ecco uno stereotipo molto significativo…

… to put it in terms of stereotypes that seem to have merit: Wives remember where the car keys are; guys read maps better than girls do…

Pensiamo solo alla divisione dei compiti tra uomo e donna nelle popolazioni primitive…

… Men did the hunting (fostered by other physical advantages of males) while women did the gathering. Their mental repertoires diverged corresponding to the skills that evolutionary pressure rewarded…

L’uomo in giro per la foresta doveva sapersi orientare, per farlo al meglio sviluppa abilità legate all’astrazione. Si tratta naturalmente di abilità centrali nelle scienze come in altre discipline…

… Within the sciences, the ordering from more to less abstract is not so clear cut—some tasks in astronomy, for example, are pure observation, cataloging, and description, while others call on the highest reaches of mathematical abstraction. But in scanning the roster of female significant figures in the sciences, the overwhelming majority made their reputations on achievements that were concrete rather than abstract…

Poiché nelle varie scienze occorrono abilità leggermente diverse tra loro, possiamo verificare come ambiti diversi della scienza siano – guarda caso – in correlazione con la presenza femminile: laddove il ragionamento astratto pesa meno, la pur scarsa presenza femminile si intensifica. In casi del genere difficile pensare all’ambiente.

La spiegazione biologica sembra avere meriti da cui non si puo’ prescindere…

… existing circumstantial evidence is already strong enough to have persuaded me that disparities in accomplishment between the sexes are significantly grounded in biological differences…

Ma forse conviene portare pazienza…

… I close the discussion of sex differences with the point that I made at the outset: All we need is a few decades’ patience and we won’t have to argue anymore…

***

Ebrei. Cosa spiega la performance spettacolare degli Ashkenaziti…

… What explains the extraordinary level of accomplishment among the Ashkenazi Jews who came out of Central and Eastern Europe?…

Hanno sempre avuto la fissa dell’istruzione (forse perché si tratta di un capitale facilmente trasportabile). La tipica famiglia ebraica polacca nel 1918…

… Almost every one of their families hires a tutor to teach its children… their entire population studies. Girls too can read, even the girls of the poorest families…

L’ IQ…

… Reports of the mean IQ of Ashkenazi Jews vary, but it is likely to be at least 107 on tests that are normed to have a mean of 100… The data for Oriental Jews do not show consistently elevated IQ means… Jews also have much larger proportions of people with extremely high IQs… it is at least plausible that selection pressures have led to a higher Jewish IQ with some genetic basis…

Puo’ darsi che la vita particolarmente dura di questa gente abbia creato una selezione naturale dei migliori…

… One cause of genetic difference could be the Diaspora and subsequent centuries of anti-Semitism, requiring the Jews to survive in alien and often hostile cultures. Those who survived and left behind offspring were statistically likely to be more resourceful…

Ci sono poi altri fattori: la lunga tradizione nell’interpretazione delle scritture. La cosa puo’ aver sviluppato facoltà speculative sopra la media.

Si aggiunga che il rabbino è un buon partito…

… The young rabbi was one of the most desirable marriage partners for young women, and also, given the intellectual demands of Talmudic study, probably had a high IQ…

Anche la struttura famigliare era particolarmente adatta e offriva alla prole un ambiente al contempo sicuro e stimolante…

… Jewish family units were strong through 1950, with few children growing up in broken homes and with close networks of grandparents, aunts, and uncles… The high expectations placed on Jewish children are the stuff of cultural cliché…

La battaglia dei sessi rivista e corretta

Nel libro “Is There Anything Good About Men?: How Cultures Flourish by Exploiting Men” Roy  Baumeister sviluppa quella che chiama “una teoria radicale sulla differenza tra uomo e donna”. Secondo lui:

… differences are rooted mainly in tradeoffs. If one gender is better at something, the superior ability will probably be linked to being worse at something…

Si parte da una differenza ben più radicale: quella tra umanità e regno animale:

… One of the most important traits that make us human is our ability to create and sustain giant social systems… These systems are called cultures. I shall suggest that cultures routinely exploit men in certain ways, which is to say cultures find men more useful than women for certain tasks.

In sintesi: l’uomo – diversamente dagli animali – convive in gigantesche formazioni sociali che si coordinano grazie alla cultura, una macchina imponente che funziona sacrificando i maschi della comunità.

Si parte osservando che in qualsiasi comunità umana esaminata nel tempo e nello spazio le posizioni di comando sono ad appannaggio dei maschietti. L’uomo domina sempre e ovunque.

… men have long held higher positions in society than women have. Most rulers throughout history have been men. Even today, most countries are governed by groups consisting mostly of men. Elsewhere in society, men rule also: in corporate boardrooms, on town councils; even within families, men seem to have more authority. The Global World Forum recently rated most nations on various dimensions of equality, and it found not a single country in which women generally enjoy superior status over men…

Ma perché questa superiorità? C’è la spiegazione “maschilista”:

… this expanation was accepted nearly everywhere until the twentieth century: that men were naturally superior to women…

E c’è la spiegazione “femminista”:

… The second explanation was a reaction against the first. It said that women were not inferior to men on any meaningful dimension. Possibly women are superior, but definitely not inferior. Therefore, the difference in social standing had to be explained as oppression. Men must somehow be working together to keep women down. Men devised a clever system for themselves, called patriarchy, and they used it to share rewards and to oppress women…

L’ambizione del libro è quella di mediare:

… This book offers a third explanation. It’s not that men are smarter than women (the first theory). It’s not that men are wicked conspirators against women (the second theory). It’s about some basic likes and dislikes. It’s rooted in how men treat other men, and how that is different from the way women relate to other women. It’s about how culture works…

Ci sono alcuni elementi che spiegano perché l’apporto delle donne alla formazione della cultura sia tanto esiguo:

… There were crucial tradeoffs: Women’s relationships were vital for some other things. Just not for constructing large systems, like a market economy, or a large team. Because culture grew out of men’s relationships—including competition, trading and communicating with strangers, and ample doses of violence—men were always in charge of it…

Oggi alla donna è chiesto di “partecipare” in molte imprese culturali ma si tratta comunque di entrare in un circuito costruito nel tempo dall’uomo. Non esistono significative “società femminili”:

… Women have asked, and occasionally demanded, to be allowed into the giant systems that men built, and to varying degrees they have been let in. Meanwhile, there are hardly any places in the world where men are asking (or demanding) to be allowed into giant social systems built up by women… lack of such female-created social systems is something worth pondering

La tesi per la quale le società in cui viviamo “sfruttino” l’uomo merita di essere chiarita:

… One core interest of the book is to examine how culture exploits men. This does not mean I am denying that culture exploits women too. Many cultures do exploit women, some more than others, and sometimes cruelly…

In altre parole: solo lo sfruttamento della donna è patologico (e viene denunciato) mentre quello dell’uomo è fisiologico (ed è normale trascurarlo).

Nella società creata dai maschi attraverso la cultura, il rapporto tra i sessi non sarebbe conflittuale ma complementare. Il femminismo contemporaneo è di tutt’altro avviso.

… Feminist theory has had the unfortunate side effect of accustoming us all to thinking of gender in terms of conflict: mainly men oppressing women, and men being threatened by female successes. Instead, I think men and women for the most part work together. Any time people work together, there are occasional conflicts, but these are not the main story. One goal of this book is to reinterpret the relations between men and women as more cooperative and complementary than antagonistic…

Le tesi femministe sembrerebbero implicare un certo complottismo patriarcale. Eppure non sembra che per gli uomini la donna sia “il nemico”, questo anche osservandoli quando stanno soli tra loro. Riferisce uno psicologo.

He identified himself as a group therapist who had been conducting all-male group therapy sessions for more than twenty years. He said something that has stuck with me ever since. In all those years of men’s groups, he had never once heard any group of men talk about women as the enemy…

Oggi è difficile comunicare con i gruppi femministi, molti di loro sembrano aver sacrificato la verità alla militanza. Nel movimento c’è un senso di purezza che va a detrimento del confronto serio.

… I strongly suspect there is no point in debating with feminists… The business of feminism was aptly summarized by Daphne Patai and Noretta Koertge, two scholars who have spent their careers in Women’s Studies programs and who wrote a thoughtful book, Professing Feminism,… most feminists do not pay any attention to criticisms from non-feminists. They listen a little bit to criticism from each other—but that mainly concerns the purity of their commitment to feminist politics and doctrine…

E’ difficile discutere con chi fa campagna contro gli urinatoi o con chi vede la convivenza un modo per “andare a letto con il nemico”.

Negli anni 70, con la conquista dei diritti molti “capi storici” del femminismo hanno mollato i posti di comando ritenendo la missione compiuta. A questo punto un certo  radicalismo a suo tempo marginale ha preso le redini del movimento.

… Many of us, especially those of us past a certain age, have affectionate memories of the feminist movement in the 1970s. We associated feminism with promoting equality… These days many people associate feminism with something quite different, even the opposite: promoting women at the expense of men, defending dogmas, stifling new thought, and deploring men…

La parabola del femminismo contemporaneo è stata già raccontata:

… In her book Who Stole Feminism? Christina Hoff Sommers argued that the feminist movement had indeed changed from a men-welcoming, idealistic movement promoting one kind of utopia into an antagonistic and often stridently anti-male movement…

Forse il conflitto tra i sessi è sopravvalutato:

… I said that the hostility between the sexes had been overstated. I mentioned as an example the women’s suffrage movement. I pointed out that women got the vote because a majority of men, only men, voted to extend the vote to women… men had essentially welcomed women with open arms and affirmative action…

Oggi chi parla di “oppressione” e “discriminazione” non è quasi mai chiamato a giustificare le sue affermazioni roboanti, le si prende per buone, o comunque le si considera accettabili. Un caso di scuola è quello che riguarda il gap negli stipendi.

… oppression hypothesis routinely has taken a beating. There are multiple possible explanations for the gender salary gap, and several have much clearer support than oppression. Men are more likely than women to work full-time rather than part-time. On average across the population, men are more ambitious than women. They work harder and put in hundreds more hours per year. Men are less likely than women to take a few years off during the crucial career-building years of their thirties. Men take bigger risks than women. Men are more willing to sacrifice other sorts of career benefits, such as freedom from travel requirements, low stress, and even personal safety, for a higher salary. Men are more likely than women to negotiate for a higher salary. All these contribute to higher male salaries…

Un altro caso lampante riguarda la preferenza per i figli maschi.

… parents were more likely to have another child if their first or previous child had been a girl than a boy. The explanation given at that time was that parents really want sons, and so if they have a girl, they regard the reproductive event as a failure… What they said, and what research evidence also shows (if anyone had bothered to look before attributing parental choices to sexism), is that girl babies are generally easier than boy babies… Boy babies are more trouble. They scream and cry more often than girl babies, and louder too. (Incidentally, this well-documented finding has been recognized as an important challenge to the conventional claim that females are more emotional than males.) Once they start crawling and walking, they get into things. They make bigger messes. They climb the furniture and pull the draperies. They fight with other kids. Parents who have boys think, this is difficult. Let’s not have any more of these… Recently I visited China. The preference for boys there is well entrenched in the culture and it is hard to deny that there is overt preference, to the point of prejudice… Yet even there, it may be overly hasty to attribute these attitudes to oppression and prejudice. My Chinese colleagues pointed out that Chinese tradition and law stipulate that a son is responsible for taking care of his parents in their old age. A daughter is not… The law and tradition are themselves quite relevant to one theme of this book. Males are required to support their parents, while females are exempt from this requirement…

La selezione naturale opera anche tra gruppi cosicché la cultura è decisiva. Le culture vincenti hanno chiaramente attribuito ruoli differenti a uomini e donne. Ma perché non il matriarcato?

… It has been tried. Unfortunately, those matriarchal cultures and societies did not stand the test of time. There is probably a good reason. In fact, I shall suggest that women can rule, and even quite effectively. But usually they don’t. It’s not a matter of competence or capability. More likely, it has to do with the willingness to take the risks and make the sacrifices…

Ma cos’è la cultura?

… In other writings, I have gone so far as to conclude that culture is humankind’s biological strategy. It is how people attempt to solve the basic biological problems that all species face: survival and reproduction. We have culture, a system that shares information, coordinates different tasks, and increases wealth… In short, cultures have challenges. To survive, they must use their men and women effectively…

Ma come si fa a dire che l’uomo è sfruttato se è praticamente a capo di tutto? E’ questo che si chiede scandalizzata la femminista. Solo la donna ha diritto di lamentarsi.

… How, indeed, can we say that men are exploited by society? On the one hand, it is true that men dominate society. They occupy the vast majority of power positions as presidents, prime ministers, and other rulers… Most large corporations are headed by men… In short, and to oversimplify, men run the world… Feminist gets quite angry at any insistence that culture victimizes men…

Noi guardiamo solo “in alto”. Perché qualche volta non guardiamo anche “in basso”? Per esempio nelle prigioni, nel braccio della morte, per strada tra i barboni, nei lavori più rischiosi, al cimitero tra i morti sul lavoro, nelle aule giudiziarie, sul campo di battaglia…

… The mistake in that way of thinking is to look only at the top of society and draw conclusions about society as a whole. Yes, there are mostly men at the top. But if you look at the bottom, really at the bottom, you’ll find mostly men there… Look at the prisons, for example… There are almost no women ever on Death Row… (Imagine if our society were half as indignant about the police engaging in gender profiling as it is about their racial profiling!)… Warren Farrell documented this in his book The Myth of Male Power. When men and women are convicted of the same crimes, the men get much longer prison sentences than the women… Another group at the bottom of society is the homeless. More men than women are homeless. In fact, for many years homeless people were almost exclusively men… When homeless people were almost entirely men, they were regarded as immoral trash, and they were called bums and tramps… study on homelessness concluded that about 15% are women… death on the job… Society needs people to do all its various jobs, and some of those jobs are dangerous. Somebody has to climb out on the roof, or exchange gunfire with the criminals, or run into burning buildings, or sail the stormy seas to rescue the desperate, or even just drive cars and trucks on the busy or dark roads that kill so many. Some of those people will end up injured or, in the worst case, killed… 92% of Americans who die in the line of work are men. This is true despite the fact that there are almost as many women as men employed in America…One more spot at the bottom deserves mention: being killed in battle… These casualties have overwhelmingly been men. That’s changing, one might say. Women are entering combat and sharing the risk. Although correct, it is beside the point. Women’s progress in sharing the risk of combat death is accompanied by women sharing many of the rewards that society has also, such as prestigious and well-paying jobs. Plus, women’s progress into high-paying jobs has been faster than their progress into risk and danger… In 2007, the Iraq war passed the sad milestone of 3,000 American deaths (including everything from being shot in combat to being killed in a traffic accident). Of those dead soldiers, 2,938 were men. The 62 women comprised about 2% of the deaths…

Nella nostre società (ovunque e sempre) i maschietti sono carne da cannone. Il perché è anche intuitivo:

… The idea has several roots, some as deep as the basic ability to make babies for the next generation, to enable cultures to compete simply by outnumbering their rivals: a culture needs only a few men but as many women as possible…

Fare l’uomo non è un pic-nic. Lo sa bene Norah Vincent:

… One of the most interesting books about gender in recent years was by Norah Vincent. She was a lesbian feminist who with some expert help could pass for a man, and so she went undercover, living as a man in several different social spheres for the better part of a year. The book, Self-Made Man, is her memoir. She is quite frank that she started out thinking she was going to find out how great men have it and write a shocking feminist expose of the fine life that the enemy (men) was enjoying. Instead, she experienced a rude awakening of how hard it is to be a man… She was glad when it was over, and in fact she cut the episode short in order to go back to what she concluded was a greatly preferable life as a woman…

Se oggi leggiamo il giornale rileviamo un clamoroso “doppiopesismo”:

…  If you follow the popular media, you see and hear plenty about the gender gap in pay and the general unfairness about women earning less than men. Meanwhile, you will see and hear very little about the gender gap in occupational death…

Eppure, non siamo affatto sconvolti da questo fatto. Perché? Perché nella cultura maschile “colpire la donna” è patologico mentre “colpire l’uomo” è fisiologico. Sì, fisiologico: la cultura costruita dai maschi richiede sacrifici umani maschili.

L’uomo è e deve essere più colpito perché è nelle sue corde prendersi più rischi materiali (… tanto va la gatta al lardo…). Tutto questo ha una conseguenze: l’uomo riceve i premi materiali maggiori (… chi non risica non rosica…). Non chiamatelo “privilegio” però, chiamatelo “trade-off”. 

… Confronted with such tradeoffs, men and women tend to see different tipping points. I’m sure it is possible to pay the average woman enough extra to make her willing to take more risk. But the average man will take that same risk for a smaller increase in salary… Many research studies have shown that men put more emphasis on money when choosing jobs and careers than women do. As a result, these men earn more than the women who took the safer careers… Taking and doing those dangerous jobs is thus one thing men are good for…

CHAPTER 1 An Odd, Unseasonal Question - Is There Anything Good About Men?: How Cultures Flourish by Exploiting Men by Roy F. Baumeister

Is There Anything Good About Men?: How Cultures Flourish by Exploiting Men by Roy F. Baumeister

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Last annotated on September 26, 2016

CHAPTER 1 An Odd, Unseasonal QuestionRead more at location 60

Note: Le maggiori differenze tra uomo e donna si comfigurano come trade off: se U è migliore nel fare X allora D fa meglio Y... Non esiste società al mondo in cui gli uomini non domonino. Perchè? Tre spieghe: 1) l'uomo è superiore 2) la donna è oppressa 3) uomo e donna hanno motivazioni differenti... La terza spiegazione sembra vincente: le inclinazioni dell'uomo sembrano più idonee a costruire sistemi sociali estesi, anonimi, astratti. La donna è più attratta dalla sfera personale... Tesi del libro: la cultura è una costruzione maschile ma ciò nn significa che tuteli il maschio, al contrario, gli uomini ricoprono spesso i panni della vittima... Il femminismo ha prodotto uno spiacevole effetto collaterale: la teria del complotto patriarcale. Non sembra davvero una tesi sostenibile. Avete mai sentito dei maschi complottare? In genere maschi e femmine collaborano. Il conflitto dovrebbe essere qualcosa che accade all'insaputa dei protagonisti. Solo alcune femministe radicali sembrano coscienti... Il femminismo da movimento per i pari diritti si è trasformato in movimento antagonista. Molti cervelli hanno giudicato raggiunti gli obbiettivi mollando il colpo e lasciando il movimento nelle mani della frangia più radicale... Non lo si può negare: chi nell'accademia revoca in dubbio gli assunti femministi rischia. Non esiste un pari trattamento tra ipotesi esplicativi. Es. il wage gap: esistono molte opotesi alternative all'oppressione dei pregiudizi (full time, rschio, sacrifici, preferenze, negoziazione...) eppure... Altro esempio eliquente sono le ricerche sulle preferenze del nascituro... U. e D. sono differenti, le culture che capitalizzano qs. differenza sono vincenti. Il matriarcato ha perso in questa lotta. Perchè. Tesi: nn che le donne siano inette a governare ma hanno meno motivazioni: sono più avverse al rischio e ai sacrifivi (hanno più alternative alla carriera)... Ma come è possibile che il sistema sfrutti i maschi quando i maschi sono ai vertici di qualsiasi organizzazione? L'errore qui è di concentrarsi sui vertici. Guarda anche ai margini, scoprirai che anche lì la prevalenza maschile è indiscutibile. Margini: prigione, barboni, incidenti sul lavoro, vitime di guerra. Per la nostra cultura la vita di un uomo vale meno. Spiegazioni? Forse è tutto legato alla generazione della prole: bastano pochi uomini per garantire una numerosa figliolanza, mentre le donne devono essere necessariamente molte... Norah Vincent: una femminista che si è fatta passare da uomo x scrivere il suo libro. Conclusione inattesa: che vita di m.!... Trade off. Esiste un genfer gap opposto nei salari e negli incidenti sul lavoro. Forse sono legati: parte del salario copre i rischi di incidenti. La logica del trade off compensa i gender gap e spiega molto in qs. tematiche... Edit

Note: 1@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@§ LA TESI... LOTTA TRA SESSI.... FEMMINSMO INVASATO. POLITICALLY CORRECT (WAGE GAP E PREFERENZA X IL MASCHIETTO)... DEFINIZIONE DI CULTURA...CARNE DA MACELLO Edit

In this book, I develop a somewhat radical theory about men and women. It holds that differences are rooted mainly in tradeoffs. If one gender is better at something, the superior ability will probably be linked to being worse at something else.Read more at location 64

Note: DIFFERENZE E TRADE OFF Edit

One of the most important traits that make us human is our ability to create and sustain giant social systemsRead more at location 68

Note: SOCIETÀ GIGANTESCHE Edit

These systems are called cultures. I shall suggest that cultures routinely exploit men in certain ways, which is to say cultures find men more useful than women for certain tasks.Read more at location 69

Note: CULTURE Edit

Note: LA CULTURA SFRUTTA L UOMO Edit

men have long held higher positions in society than women have. Most rulers throughout history have been men. Even today, most countries are governed by groups consisting mostly of men. Elsewhere in society, men rule also: in corporate boardrooms, on town councils; even within families, men seem to have more authority. The Global World Forum recently rated most nations on various dimensions of equality, and it found not a single country in which women generally enjoy superior status over men.Read more at location 75

Note: L UOMO DOMINA OVUNQUE Edit

Note: NON CI SONO ECCEZIONI AL DOMINIO DEL MASCHIO Edit

two main explanations have been put forward for why men have dominated culture and ruled the world. The first was accepted nearly everywhere until the twentieth century: that men were naturally superior to women.Read more at location 79

Note: 1 IL MASCHIO È SUPERIORE IN QS RUOLO. PRIMA SPIEGAZIONE Edit

The second explanation was a reaction against the first. It said that women were not inferior to men on any meaningful dimension. Possibly women are superior, but definitely not inferior. Therefore, the difference in social standing had to be explained as oppression. Men must somehow be working together to keep women down. Men devised a clever system for themselves, called patriarchy, and they used it to share rewards and to oppress women.Read more at location 82

Note: 2 LA DONNA È OPPRESSA Edit

Note: PATRIARCATO Edit

Note: PATRIARCHIA. SECONDA RISPOSTA Edit

This book offers a third explanation. It’s not that men are smarter than women (the first theory). It’s not that men are wicked conspirators against women (the second theory). It’s about some basic likes and dislikes. It’s rooted in how men treat other men, and how that is different from the way women relate to other women. It’s about how culture works.Read more at location 85

Note: 3 UOMO E DONNA HANNO MOTIVAZIONI DIFFERENTI Edit

There were crucial tradeoffs: Women’s relationships were vital for some other things. Just not for constructing large systems, like a market economy, or a large team. Because culture grew out of men’s relationships—including competition, trading and communicating with strangers, and ample doses of violence—men were always in charge of it.Read more at location 89

Note: ASTRAZIONE VIOLENZA E COMPETIZIONE TAGLIANO FUORI LE DONNE Edit

Women have asked, and occasionally demanded, to be allowed into the giant systems that men built, and to varying degrees they have been let in. Meanwhile, there are hardly any places in the world where men are asking (or demanding) to be allowed into giant social systems built up by women.Read more at location 92

Note: OGGI Edit

lack of such female-created social systems is something worth pondering.Read more at location 95

Add a note

What this Book Isn’tRead more at location 95

Note: T Edit

One core interest of the book is to examine how culture exploits men. This does not mean I am denying that culture exploits women too. Many cultures do exploit women, some more than others, and sometimes cruelly.Read more at location 97

Note: SFRUTTAMENTO Edit

Gender Warriors Please Go HomeRead more at location 114

Note: T Edit

Home This book is not about the “battle of the sexes.”Read more at location 114

Note: BATTAGLIA DEI SESSI Edit

Feminist theory has had the unfortunate side effect of accustoming us all to thinking of gender in terms of conflict: mainly men oppressing women, and men being threatened by female successes. Instead, I think men and women for the most part work together. Any time people work together, there are occasional conflicts, but these are not the main story. One goal of this book is to reinterpret the relations between men and women as more cooperative and complementary than antagonistic.Read more at location 117

Note: FEMMINISMO E CONFLITTO Edit

Note: COMPLEMENTARI PIUTTOSTO CHE ANTAGONISTI Edit

He identified himself as a group therapist who had been conducting all-male group therapy sessions for more than twenty years. He said something that has stuck with me ever since. In all those years of men’s groups, he had never once heard any group of men talk about women as the enemy.Read more at location 123

Note: PATRIARCATO E COMPLOTTISMO Edit

About FeminismRead more at location 151

Note: TITOLO. IL FEMMINISMO Edit

some of it has fostered hatred and readily sacrificed the pursuit of truth for the sake of self-interested political gain.Read more at location 153

Note: SACRIFICARE LA VERITÀ ALLA MILITANZA Edit

Many of us, especially those of us past a certain age, have affectionate memories of the feminist movement in the 1970s. We associated feminism with promoting equality,Read more at location 154

Note: IL BEL RICORDO DEL FEMMINISMO Edit

These days many people associate feminism with something quite different, even the opposite: promoting women at the expense of men, defending dogmas, stifling new thought, and deploring men.Read more at location 156

Note: OGGI: L ATTACCO ALL UOMO Edit

In her book Who Stole Feminism? Christina Hoff Sommers argued that the feminist movement had indeed changed from a men-welcoming, idealistic movement promoting one kind of utopia into an antagonistic and often stridently anti-male movement.Read more at location 159

Note: LA SVOLTA SOMMERS Edit

achieving many of its reasonable goals caused many to think the job was done. Fewer moderate women joined, and this left the movement to be taken over by the more radical and fanatical types.Read more at location 161

Note: 60/70: X MOLTE IL LAVORO ERA FATTO Edit

Note: LE RADICALI AL VERTICE Edit

I strongly suspect there is no point in debating with feminists.Read more at location 164

Note: INUTILE DISCUTERE CON LE FEMMINISTE Edit

The business of feminism was aptly summarized by Daphne Patai and Noretta Koertge, two scholars who have spent their careers in Women’s Studies programs and who wrote a thoughtful book, Professing Feminism,Read more at location 165

Add a note

most feminists do not pay any attention to criticisms from non-feminists. They listen a little bit to criticism from each other—but that mainly concerns the purity of their commitment to feminist politics and doctrine.Read more at location 167

Note: TRASCURARE LE CROTICHE È UN DOVERE Edit

Note: PUREZZA Edit

Meet the Imaginary FeministRead more at location 172

Note: TITOLO. FEMMNISTA IMMAGINARIA Edit

my argument is with a certain stereotyped feminist outlook. I am arguing not with actual feminists, but with feminists as they are perceived by men.Read more at location 177

Note: CONTRE CERTO FEMMINISMO Edit

Imaginary Feminist,Read more at location 178

Add a note

These include the ones who have campaigned to have urinals removed from public lavatories so that men will be forced to sit down to urinate,Read more at location 184

Note: CAMPAGNA CONTRO GLI URINATOI. ESEMPIO Edit

sex with men was “sleeping with the enemy.”Read more at location 187

Note: DORMIRE COL NEMICO... ESEMPIO Edit

Who Stands Out?Read more at location 190

Note: TITOLO Edit

I said that the hostility between the sexes had been overstated. I mentioned as an example the women’s suffrage movement. I pointed out that women got the vote because a majority of men, only men, voted to extend the vote to women.Read more at location 190

Note: CONFLITTO SOPRAVVALUTATO Edit

Note: SUFFRAGIO Edit

men had essentially welcomed women with open arms and affirmative action.Read more at location 193

Add a note

No doubt there are many women who identify themselves as feminists yet who do not hate men and may even like them,Read more at location 202

Note: FEMMINISTE CHE NN ODIANO Edit

Oppression and PrejudiceRead more at location 208

Note: TITOLO Edit

claims about oppression and prejudice seem immune to this process. They are not treated with the same strict discipline that other scientificRead more at location 216

Note: POLITICALLY CORRECT Edit

Take the difference in salary.Read more at location 218

Note: ES: WAGE GAP. IMMUNITÀ Edit

oppression hypothesis routinely has taken a beating. There are multiple possible explanations for the gender salary gap, and several have much clearer support than oppression. Men are more likely than women to work full-time rather than part-time. On average across the population, men are more ambitious than women. They work harder and put in hundreds more hours per year. Men are less likely than women to take a few years off during the crucial career-building years of their thirties. Men take bigger risks than women. Men are more willing to sacrifice other sorts of career benefits, such as freedom from travel requirements, low stress, and even personal safety, for a higher salary. Men are more likely than women to negotiate for a higher salary. All these contribute to higher male salaries.Read more at location 220

Note: FULL TIME Edit

Note: AMBIZIONE Edit

Note: BAMBINI Edit

Note: RISCHI Edit

Note: NEGOZIARE IL SALARIO Edit

Note: OPPRESSIONE IL DEFAULT INDIMISTRATO Edit

preference for boy babiesRead more at location 225

Note: ALTRO ESEMPIO: PREFERENZA X I BAMBINI MASCHI Edit

parents were more likely to have another child if their first or previous child had been a girl than a boy. The explanation given at that time was that parents really want sons, and so if they have a girl, they regard the reproductive event as a failureRead more at location 227

Note: TESI DELLA PREFERENZA Edit

alternative explanations.Read more at location 230

Add a note

What they said, and what research evidence also shows (if anyone had bothered to look before attributing parental choices to sexism), is that girl babies are generally easier than boy babies.Read more at location 232

Note: FEMMINUCCE MENO IMPEGNATIVE. SPIEGAZIONE REALE Edit

Boy babies are more trouble. They scream and cry more often than girl babies, and louder too. (Incidentally, this well-documented finding has been recognized as an important challenge to the conventional claim that females are more emotional than males.) Once they start crawling and walking, they get into things. They make bigger messes. They climb the furniture and pull the draperies. They fight with other kids. Parents who have boys think, this is difficult. Let’s not have any more of these.Read more at location 237

Note: LA PESTE Edit

Recently I visited China. The preference for boys there is well entrenched in the culture and it is hard to deny that there is overt preference, to the point of prejudice.Read more at location 241

Note: CINA Edit

Yet even there, it may be overly hasty to attribute these attitudes to oppression and prejudice. My Chinese colleagues pointed out that Chinese tradition and law stipulate that a son is responsible for taking care of his parents in their old age. A daughter is not.Read more at location 246

Note: RESP. DEL MASCHIO Edit

The law and tradition are themselves quite relevant to one theme of this book. Males are required to support their parents, while females are exempt from this requirement.Read more at location 253

Note: PRIVILEGIO O SFRUTTAMENTO? Edit

He, She, and ItRead more at location 258

Note: TITOLO Edit

I shall propose that men and women are different in some basic ways and that some cultures—successful ones—capitalize on these differences to outperform rival cultures.Read more at location 258

Note: LA CULTURA VINCENTE: QUELLA CHE SFRUTTA MEGLIO LE DIFFERENZE Edit

The Imaginary Feminist asks, why not matriarchy? Why can’t women rule? I say, yes, why not?Read more at location 259

Note: XCHÈ LA MATRIARCHIA FALLISCE Edit

It has been tried. Unfortunately, those matriarchal cultures and societies did not stand the test of time. There is probably a good reason. In fact, I shall suggest that women can rule, and even quite effectively. But usually they don’t. It’s not a matter of competence or capability. More likely, it has to do with the willingness to take the risks and make the sacrificesRead more at location 261

Note: DONNE: POCO ADATTE AL RISCHIO E AL SACRIFICIO X ASTRAZIONI (ES PATRIA) Edit

In other writings, I have gone so far as to conclude that culture is humankind’s biological strategy. It is how people attempt to solve the basic biological problems that all species face: survival and reproduction. We have culture, a system that shares information, coordinates different tasks, and increases wealth.Read more at location 266

Note: COS È LA CULTURA? Edit

In short, cultures have challenges. To survive, they must use their men and women effectively.Read more at location 281

Note: CULTIRA VINCENTE NELLA COMPETIZIONE TRS GRUPPI Edit

How Can Men Be Exploited if They Run Everything?Read more at location 283

Note: TITOLO Edit

How, indeed, can we say that men are exploited by society? On the one hand, it is true that men dominate society. They occupy the vast majority of power positions as presidents, prime ministers, and other rulers.Read more at location 286

Note: POTERE Edit

Most large corporations are headed by men.Read more at location 289

Add a note

Certainly, the Imaginary Feminist won’t listen to any talk about men being oppressed.Read more at location 291

Note: LA FEMMINISTA SCANDALIZZATA Edit

Only women have the right to complain.Read more at location 292

Add a note

Feminist gets quite angry at any insistence that culture victimizes men,Read more at location 294

Note: VITTIMA SENZA VITTIMISMO Edit

In short, and to oversimplify, men run the world.Read more at location 298

Note: FATTO Edit

How can you say men are exploited, if they run everything?Read more at location 300

Add a note

Meanwhile, at the BottomRead more at location 301

Note: TITOLO. BOTTOM Edit

The mistake in that way of thinking is to look only at the top of society and draw conclusions about society as a whole. Yes, there are mostly men at the top. But if you look at the bottom, really at the bottom, you’ll find mostly men there too.Read more at location 302

Note: SOLO UOMINI IN FONDO Edit

Look at the prisons, for example.Read more at location 304

Note: PRIGIONI Edit

There are almost no women ever on Death Row.Read more at location 306

Note: PENA DI MORTE Edit

(Imagine if our society were half as indignant about the police engaging in gender profiling as it is about their racial profiling!)Read more at location 309

Note: CRIMINI. IMMAGINA SE FOSSE SCORRETTO SVELARE IL SESSO Edit

Warren Farrell documented this in his book The Myth of Male Power. When men and women are convicted of the same crimes, the men get much longer prison sentences than the women.Read more at location 310

Note: SENTENZE Edit

Another group at the bottom of society is the homeless. More men than women are homeless. In fact, for many years homeless people were almost exclusively men.Read more at location 315

Note: BARBONI Edit

When homeless people were almost entirely men, they were regarded as immoral trash, and they were called bums and tramps.Read more at location 316

Note: ATTITUDINE VS I BARBONI Edit

study on homelessness concluded that about 15% are women.Read more at location 320

Add a note

death on the job.Read more at location 324

Note: MORTI SUL LAVORO Edit

Society needs people to do all its various jobs, and some of those jobs are dangerous. Somebody has to climb out on the roof, or exchange gunfire with the criminals, or run into burning buildings, or sail the stormy seas to rescue the desperate, or even just drive cars and trucks on the busy or dark roads that kill so many. Some of those people will end up injured or, in the worst case, killed.Read more at location 324

Add a note

92% of Americans who die in the line of work are men. This is true despite the fact that there are almost as many women as men employed in America.Read more at location 327

Note: 92 Edit

One more spot at the bottom deserves mention: being killed in battle.Read more at location 328

Note: MORTI IN GUERRA Edit

These casualties have overwhelmingly been men. That’s changing, one might say. Women are entering combat and sharing the risk. Although correct, it is beside the point. Women’s progress in sharing the risk of combat death is accompanied by women sharing many of the rewards that society has also, such as prestigious and well-paying jobs. Plus, women’s progress into high-paying jobs has been faster than their progress into risk and danger.Read more at location 330

Note: DONNA AL LAVORO Edit

In 2007, the Iraq war passed the sad milestone of 3,000 American deaths (including everything from being shot in combat to being killed in a traffic accident). Of those dead soldiers, 2,938 were men. The 62 women comprised about 2% of the deaths.Read more at location 334

Note: IRAQ. 98% UOMINI Edit

Men are more expendable than women, at least from the perspective of the cultural system.Read more at location 339

Note: CARNE DA MACELLO Edit

The idea has several roots, some as deep as the basic ability to make babies for the next generation, to enable cultures to compete simply by outnumbering their rivals: a culture needs only a few men but as many women as possible.Read more at location 340

Note: SPIEGAZIONE Edit

Note: FARE BAMBINI: SERVONO POCHI UOMINI E MOLTE DONNE. Edit

Seeing Both SidesRead more at location 342

Note: TITOLO Edit

Yes, there are more men than women at the top of society, but there are also far more men than women at the bottom. The two are related. Society uses men and women differently.Read more at location 342

Note: RIASSUNTO Edit

One of the most interesting books about gender in recent years was by Norah Vincent. She was a lesbian feminist who with some expert help could pass for a man, and so she went undercover, living as a man in several different social spheres for the better part of a year. The book, Self-Made Man, is her memoir. She is quite frank that she started out thinking she was going to find out how great men have it and write a shocking feminist expose of the fine life that the enemy (men) was enjoying. Instead, she experienced a rude awakening of how hard it is to be a man.Read more at location 354

Note: VINCENT Edit

Note: UOMO X FINTA Edit

Note: TROPPO DURA ESSERE UOMINI Edit

She was glad when it was over, and in fact she cut the episode short in order to go back to what she concluded was a greatly preferable life as a woman.Read more at location 359

Note: ESPERIMENTO TAGLIATO: TROPPO DURO Edit

This conclusionRead more at location 368

Add a note

Making Different ChoicesRead more at location 369

Note: SCELTE DIVERSE T Edit

Although in modern society women can be found in just about all walks of life, men still outnumber them at the extremes, and in the past this difference has been even greater.Read more at location 370

Note: SOMMARIO Edit

Note: IL FATTO CENTRALE Edit

If you follow the popular media, you see and hear plenty about the gender gap in pay and the general unfairness about women earning less than men. Meanwhile, you will see and hear very little about the gender gap in occupational death.Read more at location 373

Note: POLITICALLY CORRECT Edit

Very likely, those two gaps have some link.Read more at location 375

Note: TRADE OFF Edit

This is called a tradeoff. Tradeoffs will be important throughout this book. In fact, I think gender theory needs to acknowledge tradeoffs much more than it has.Read more at location 379

Note: RICONOSCERE I TRADE OFF Edit

Confronted with such tradeoffs, men and women tend to see different tipping points. I’m sure it is possible to pay the average woman enough extra to make her willing to take more risk. But the average man will take that same risk for a smaller increase in salary.Read more at location 385

Note: MEDIA. BELL Edit

Many research studies have shown that men put more emphasis on money when choosing jobs and careers than women do. As a result, these men earn more than the women who took the safer careers.Read more at location 388

Note: IL DENARO AL CENTRO. EVIL RISCHIO Edit

Taking and doing those dangerous jobs is thus one thing men are good for.Read more at location 390

Note: IL RISCHIO È IL SUO MESTIERE. PREFERENZA Edit