Venus and Mars

How different are women and men?

Ever since ancient times, the planet Venus has been taken as representative of women, and Mars of men. And their astronomical symbols ♀ and ♂ aren’t mere letter forms—they really do symbolize the copper hand mirror of the goddess, and the iron spear and shield of a Hoplite warrior. The schism between these planets is an ancient one, reaching past the Roman Venus and Mars to Babylonian Dilbat and Ṣalbatānu, into Ancient Sumer, where the planets were named for the radiant goddess Ninsi’anna,¹ and the red-handed god of inflicted death, Nergal.²

Image courtesy of Bayu Samudro

For as long as humans have gazed into the heavens, they have also gazed within, seeking to understand themselves. One of the most fundamental facts of our existence is the duality of our sexual nature: we cannot reproduce on our own, and must play the biological role of male or female in order to renew our people and perpetuate our ancient species across the vast oceans of time.

What, then, is the meaning, the essence, of male and female? Are they born of one nature? Or do they differ in the fundamental character of their soul? Simple observation suggests that they they do differ, but then, what of these differences? Are they superficial? Complementary? Conflicting? Or are the differences so profound as to render each totally alien to the other, separated by an unbridgable, uncrossable gulf of experience?

The Experience of Female and Male

Numerous reviews of differential ability and potential can be found online, comparing health outcomes, longevity, upper body strength, verbal and spacial ability, and so on. Here, I want to focus on something less commonly considered: the emotional experience of life as a woman or a man. Although my understanding of this topic is continually evolving as I uncover more research, interact with more people, and (occasionally) carry out my own surveys, the two areas of strongest and most significant difference originate from women’s and men’s basic reproductive roles, and from their physical differences.

Sex Drive

There are numerous interesting papers on the subject; the early studies of Kinsey and Eysenck are still relevant today. But my favorite 21st century researcher in the field of gender studies would have to be Roy Baumeister, for his work on female erotic plasticity.³ For students seeking an introductory understanding of human nature, the best single paper I can recommend is his 2001 meta analysis with Catanese and Vohs, “Is there a gender difference in strength of sex drive?” They conclude their article with the strongest language I have ever encountered in a scientific paper:

All the evidence we have reviewed points toward the conclusion that men desire sex more than women. Although some of the findings were more methodologically rigorous than others, the unanimous convergence across all measures and findings increases confidence. We did not find a single study, on any of nearly a dozen
different measures, that found women had a stronger sex drive than men. We think that the combined quantity, quality, diversity, and convergence of the evidence render the conclusion indisputable.⁴

The explanation for this difference is less conclusive, but they report that at least a portion of the difference is likely biological in nature:

[I]t would be premature to declare that a substantial part of the gender difference in sex drive is biologically innate, but we think the evidence is pointing in that direction (not least because of the apparent consistency of the difference).⁵

But we are not merely interested in whether a difference exists. How great is the difference? Here the method used is to consider how far the distributions are shifted away from one another. This is typically measured using Cohen’s d, which tells how far apart are the means of two distributions, in terms of standard deviations. For the strength of the sex drive, I can provide an analysis courtesy of Richard Lippa, who finds that, across a sample of 52 countries, d = 0.62.⁶

What does this mean? To put this into perspective, the height difference across women and men is d = 1.64. So if you can picture the average difference in heights between adult females and males, then roughly half of that is the sex drive gap. Graphically, that d = 0.62 difference in sex drive looks like this:

A visual representation of the distributions of female and male sex drive, d = 0.62.

This difference is predicted by evolutionary biology. The potential for males to produce innumerable offspring, combined with the costs of gestation, birth, and child-rearing differentially borne by females, places different evolutionary pressures on male and female sex drives. So even though the strength of this drive may vary, or even occasionally reverse, across species, we have reason to believe this difference is a fundamental aspect of sexually reproductive beings, as wide and enduring as the heavens themselves.

Emotionality

More peculiar to our own species is the specific degree of sexual dimorphism—in other words, males are bigger than females in our species, but this is not always the case. Females are larger than males in many species. Yet the fact of human sexual dimorphism, combined with the extreme vulnerability of females during the long periods of pregnancy and nursing among humans, means that women are much less physically capable than males during critical moments of their lives.

It’s true that men do still fall ill, suffer wounds, and sleep. But women suffer the same problems, and because of human sexual dimorphism, even when women are healthy and awake, they still run more slowly, carry less, and punch less hard than men. Women, therefore, depend upon others more, and are more vulnerable to danger on average.

Moreover, women must not only be concerned for themselves. They must also be sensitive to the needs of their infants. An evolutionarily successful woman does not merely avoid dangers and stay near protection; she also nurtures her children and keeps them close.

The result of these basic physical facts of existence is that men and women differ in terms of trait Emotionality:

Persons with very high scores on the Emotionality scale experience fear of physical dangers, experience anxiety in response to life's stresses, feel a need for emotional support from others, and feel empathy and sentimental attachments with others. Conversely, persons with very low scores on this scale are not deterred by the prospect of physical harm, feel little worry even in stressful situations, have little need to share their concerns with others, and feel emotionally detached from others.⁷

Intriguingly, Emotionality differences are higher in wealthy, gender-egalitarian societies. This is difficult to understand if we presume that culture drives gender differences. Why wouldn’t societies where women and men are segregated and treated differently show greater differences in Emotionality?

Research carried out elsewhere suggests a possible explanation: in traditional countries, individuals are more segregated by gender, and compare people to others of their own gender when rating personality; in egalitarian societies, people compare one another to the average of both genders.⁸ If you’re a man comparing yourself to men, or a woman comparing yourself to women, your personality may come out more as a measure of what you're like relative to people of the same gender, rather than relative to the average. In wealthy, modern nations, where we have reason to presume that this bias is weaker, the gender difference in Emotionality is approximately d = 1.

A visual representation of male and female Emotionality, d ~ 1.

When people are asked to describe themselves, this is how the distributions look. So the typical woman is rather more sentimental, empathic, anxious, and emotionally dependent on others than the typical man. To help offer perspective, here are some terms used by people low, and high, in Emotionality, when they describe themselves:⁹

High Emotionality

• Emotional

• Feminine

• Sensitive

• Sentimental

• Nervous

• Whiny

• Fearful

• Melodramatic

• Gullible

• Moody

• Nagging

• Clingy

Low Emotionality

• Masculine

• Fearless

• Unemotional

• Rugged

• Tough

• Heartless

• Rough

• Self-assured

• Cold-hearted

• Unfeeling

• Insensitive

• Decisive

• Ruthless

• Unsympathetic

A Difference of Values

In an extended family living in the environment of evolutionary adaptation, where vulnerable women could rely on men to protect them from dangers, gender differences in average personality created compatibility. But in an individualistic, democratic society where these differences in emotional experience give rise to differences in values, conflict inevitably arises.

Although a thorough review of the literature would take forever, people; seriously, I want to play video games with my kids is beyond the scope of this article, numerous studies find differences in female and male values. For example:¹⁰

Females in our sample are more likely than males to express concern and responsibility for the well-being of others, less likely than males to accept materialism and competition, and more likely than males to indicate that finding purpose and meaning in life is extremely important.

(Readers familiar with my discussion of Sarah Perry’s work may recall: Perry is really concerned about the well-being of an impala chased by the lion, doesn’t seem to feel like the competition between predator and prey is a good thing, and seems troubled that she doesn’t think life really has meaning. The present author does care about the impala, and prefers life to feel meaningful, but is also able to take life on its own terms, and thinks of the hunt as an exciting feature of a complex existence.)

In past decades, issues such as war, prostitution, or alcohol have seen schisms in separating the attitudes of women and men. But for a more modern example, consider the issue of freedom of speech. A recent survey of students at the University of Wisconsin found females are much more likely to see hurtful speech as violent, and much less likely to defend free speech, than male students. To be specific, when asked whether the expression of offensive views can be seen as “an act of violence toward vulnerable people,” male and female students answered like this:

Male: 60.1% “Not at all.” 17.9% “Quite a bit or a great deal.”
Female: 31.8% “Not at all.” 37.7% “Quite a bit or a great deal.”

What is evaluated dispassionately, or as an opportunity for competition by men, is experienced as threatening and insensitive to many women.

What Does This Mean?

And what should we do? And what about people who really don’t fit in with either stereotypical gender? I’m still thinking about those questions, and maybe I’ll have more to say another time.

For now, what is clear is that men and women must find ways to get along. And indeed, they will find ways to get along: the future does not belong to angry, childless, man-hating feminists any more than to the men going their own way. As living, breathing human beings, we must learn to love and cooperate with at least one member of another sex for a little while, at least. There’s really no other way—our children depend upon it.

1. Kathryn Stevens. (n.d.) 'Ninsi'anna (god/goddess)', Ancient Mesopotamian Gods and Goddesses, Oracc and the UK Higher Education Academy. [http://oracc.museum.upenn.edu/amgg/listofdeities/ninsianna/]

2. Yaǧmur Heffron. (2016) 'Nergal (god)', Ancient Mesopotamian Gods and Goddesses, Oracc and the UK Higher Education Academy, 2016 [http://oracc.museum.upenn.edu/amgg/listofdeities/nergal/]

3. Baumeister, R. F. (2000). Gender differences in erotic plasticity: the female sex drive as socially flexible and responsive. Psychological bulletin, 126(3), 347. Available online.

4. Baumeister, R. F., Catanese, K. R., & Vohs, K. D. (2001). Is there a gender difference in strength of sex drive? Theoretical views, conceptual distinctions, and a review of relevant evidence. Personality and social psychology review, 5(3), 242-273. Available online.

5. Ibid.

6. Lippa, R. A. (2009). Sex differences in sex drive, sociosexuality, and height across 53 nations: Testing evolutionary and social structural theories. Archives of sexual behavior, 38, 631-651.

7. Lee, K. & Ashton, M (2009). The Hexaco Personality Inventory—Revised: A Measure of the Six Major Dimensions of Personaliy. [http://hexaco.org/scaledescriptions]

8. Lukaszewski, A. W., Roney, J. R., Mills, M. E., & Bernard, L. C. (2013). At the interface of social cognition and psychometrics: Manipulating the sex of the reference class modulates sex differences in personality traits. Journal of Research in Personality, 47(6), 953-957.

9. Lee, K., & Ashton, M. C. (2008). The HEXACO personality factors in the indigenous personality lexicons of English and 11 other languages. Journal of personality, 76(5), 1001-1054.

10. Beutel, A. M., & Marini, M. M. (1995). Gender and values. American sociological review, 436-448.