Complementarity and Creation image

Complementarity and Creation

A couple of weeks ago I read two fascinating articles within the space of twelve hours. Both were on the subject of sex difference and complementarity, and both made the case that despite our best efforts to blur the distinctions between males and females, and to catechise our society accordingly, genuine differences kept poking through the cracks. One was written by a woman (Christina Hoff Sommers) and one by a man (Alastair Roberts); one was in a mainstream news outlet (The Federalist) and one in a relatively niche Christian website (The Calvinist International); one was not explicitly Christian and the other one was; but they both told a strikingly similar story. You might even say they were complementary.

Arguably the key section of Alastair’s article is the link-flooded section in the middle, where he draws out many of these distinctions:

Men are typically considerably more aggressive, competitive, and inclined to risk-taking or violent behaviours than women. Men, for instance, constitute the overwhelming majority of those within prisons in nations around the world and commit practically every crime at a higher rate than women. Across human societies, men are directly responsible for almost all serious violence and war. Men are consistently found to be much more promiscuous than women. Testosterone is correlated with higher levels of confidence, status assertion, and a higher sex drive. Men are also much more likely to take risks (both physical and intellectual), to be fearless, and to be treated as expendable by society.

Important differences in sociality exist too. Differences between the sexes emerge very early on, even before children have any conceptual appreciation of gender (e.g. 40 of 43 serious shootings by toddlers in 2015 were by boys!). Male groups are much more agonistic (not just physically, but also verbally and conversationally) and prone to direct violence; female groups can be much more prone to indirect and dissembled forms of social conflict. Women tend to prefer smaller groups; men tend to prefer larger ones. Male groups are more hierarchical in tendency; women’s are more likely to be egalitarian in their group norms. Women tend to be more people and social-emotional oriented than men; men tend to be more thing, task, and agency oriented than women. Women are more likely to have a verbal tilt in their ability; men are more likely to have a mathematical tilt. Worked out across societies and over time, these weighted tendencies have fairly consistently produced predictable patterns and far-reaching differences in male and female representation in various endeavours and roles. Indeed, these differences in gendered tendencies are often most pronounced in Western individualistic egalitarian societies, where people are freer to follow natural inclinations.

There is a wealth of research on these and related subjects, yet it is unfortunate that I should need to link to any of it. Much of it simply identifies facts that should be clearly apparent to anyone who pays attention to themselves, society, and the world around them, and hasn’t been forgetful of nature.

Christina Hoff Sommers makes a similar point from the perspective of children:

Parents who read too much Judith Butler in college and view gender as fluid and malleable may be startled by the counterevidence their three-year-olds provide. The usually eloquent Julia Turner, editor of Slate, became tongue-tied a few weeks ago when she tried to explain a mysterious development at home: Her little twin sons were obsessed with wheeled objects—particularly cement mixers. Parenthood, she confessed, had “complicated” her worldview. Turner kept affirming her loyalty to the gender-is-a-social-construct school. But then, referring to her sons’ insistent boyishness, she uttered four heretical words: “There’s a there there…”

Indeed there is. And it takes a liberal arts degree not to see it. A 2012 cross-cultural study on sex differences confirmed what most of us see: despite some exceptions, females tend to be more sensitive, esthetic, sentimental, intuitive, and tender-minded, while males tend to be more utilitarian, objective, unsentimental, and tough-minded.

The female penchant for nurturing play and the male propensity for rough-and-tumble hold cross-culturally and even cross-species. Among our close relatives such as rhesus and vervet monkeys, researchers have found that females play with dolls far more than do their brothers, who prefer balls and toy cars. It seems unlikely the monkeys are acting out a culturally manufactured gender binary. Something else is going on. Most scientists attribute typical male/female differences to some yet-to-be understood combination of biology and culture.


← Prev article
Next article →