The Differences Between the Sexes...

[Warning: this went kinda long. But bear with me--I think it's worth it.]

When I was a wee lad just starting off in grad school, my first theory class adopted the following terminology, just so we could all agree on what we were talking about (and yes, it's fairly arbitrary, but it's useful to agree on terms. You are free to use other terms. Just don't comment and tell me that I'm wrong, because I'm not saying these are definitive. Just handy):

Sex is biological. It's what you're born with. Chromosomes and ovaries and all that. It's not quite the binary duality that folks like to make it out to be.

Gender is cultural. It's what you do. Long hair and lipstick and tractor pulls. Not even close to a binary duality (tho people will pretend that it is) and extremely variable from culture to culture and even within culture.

Pay attention. This is going to be important later.

So. The lesson for today is The Differences Between the Sexes are less significant than the Differences within the Sexes.

What does that mean? It means that while there may be statistically valid differences between males and females, those differences are generally--if not always--smaller than the natural variation between the sexes.

[Not to mention that most of the studies that purport to "prove" one sex-based difference or another are crap, as the ever-trenchant Twisty is fond of pointing out]

In other words, although the difference between the average men's and average women's height is both statistically valid and probably the most often quoted difference, it's really only about 4 inches. So compare that to the difference within the normal range of men's and women's heights. Based on my half-assed research, 80% (I guess that qualifies as "normal," right?) of men fall between 5’4” and 6’0.” Likewise, 80% of women fall between 5’0” and 5”8.” That's a difference of eight inches. So while an "average man" is taller than an "average woman," a "tall man" is much taller than a "short man." The differences between the sexes are less significant than the differences within the sexes.

The relevance to daily life is more apparent with a starker example. If 51% of the US population is female and 49% are male (yes, I'm assuming binary duality for the sake of simplicity), that makes a difference of 1%--much closer to the types of differences that the few reputable studies find. In fact, if this finding of a 1% difference was treated like SAT scores or text messaging habits, it would be seen as Further Proof of Basic Biological Differences. Is it statistically valid? Yup. Could you replicate the findings from now till doomsday? You betcha. Does it mean jack shit in terms of predictive power? No.

Imagine this. We're sitting in your lovely corner office, and I bet you $100 you can't guess the sex of the next (random) person to walk through your door. Knowing that 51% of Americans are female, you know that statistically, women walk through your door more often than men.

Yet you and I both know that betting "Female" isn't going to do you a damn bit of good. We'd have to make that bet over and over again before betting "Female" would even remotely begin to pay off. Why? Because a 1% difference doesn't mean jack shit when trying to predict the behavior of actual human beings on a daily basis. It doesn't mean jack shit when trying to decide who's better at cooking, and it doesn't mean jack shit when arguing about why women are squeezed out of the top levels of science.

That is, sex has virtually no predictive power. "Sex profiling" is just as baseless as racial profiling. While "Women" in the abstract may be statistically different from "Men" in the abstract, that bit of information is virtually, if not completely useless when trying to assess the abilities, tendencies or capabilities of any individual man or woman.

All of this because I happened across two sources that might not seem to have a lot in common. The first was Amanda's take on a new study that shows that (gasp) the differences between the sexes are minimal (i.e., they don't mean jack shit ).

Which reminded me of an argument I had with my best friend's sexist-pig-of-a-roommate years ago. I suggested that there was no reason that women couldn't one day play Major League Baseball, and he was scandalized. Never, he insisted. They're physically incapable. I pointed out that the bodybuilder his roommate was currently dating could probably take care of herself on the field.

[I really wanted to include a link to a picture of her because those of you who aren't familiar with serious (1996 North American overall champion) female bodybuilders probably have no fucking idea just how muscular this woman was. But I couldn't find a picture where she wasn't semi-nude, bending over, or both. How fucked up is that?]

He countered that although she was indeed an "Amazon," she was still only five-foot-eight, and something like 180 lbs. Then he showed a little of that creepy vengeful anger that a lot of guys do when confronted with the spectre of a woman sullying their precious homosociality: he seemed to relish the idea of her getting seriously hurt in a collision at home plate with a catcher who was something like 6'4", 230 lbs, and took great satisfaction in having thus "proven" that women couldn't possibly play Major League Baseball.

So, would a 5' 8" woman be "vulnerable" to getting seriously injured in a full-speed collision with a 6' 4" catcher? Of course.

But so would a 5' 9" Timo Perez (Chicago), a 5' 8" Marcus Giles (Atlanta) or a 5-foot six-and-one-half-inch David Eckstein (Anaheim).

So, it's not about small people getting hurt playing Major League Baseball. I mean, you don't hear guys across the nation howling indignantly any time a man under 5' 9" steps up to the plate, now do you? No, it's all about the (supposed) inevitability and intolerability of a woman being hurt by a man if she competes with him. Well, that and the implied threat--"don't try to play baseball or we'll kick your fucking ass."

Or consider, if you will, Manute Bol and Spud Webb. In 1986, Bol was the tallest man in the NBA: Seven feet, seven inches. That same year, at the NBA Slam Dunk Contest (Slam Dunking = propelling your body so incredibly fucking high that you can reach over the rim of a ten-foot basket and slam the ball down through the hoop), up against the best players in the world Webb not only slam-dunked repeatedly, but won the competition. How tall was he? Six-one? Six-five? Maybe seven feet?

No. Spud Webb stands five feet, seven inches. A full two motherfucking feet shorter than Manute Bol, and about 10-12 inches shorter than all the guys he beat in the competition.

That right there ought to put to rest any idea that women can't compete with men because they're physically inferior. The difference between the average man and the average woman is four inches. The difference between the tallest and shortest men in the NBA in 1986 was two fucking feet.

The Differences Between the Sexes are less significant than the Differences within the Sexes.

So, if it's not about innate physical ability, then I predict that one day we will hear about a girl winning a national slam dunk championship against the best male high-school players in the

--Oh, wait. She already did.

So, the other source that got me thinking tonight was the cliché of the "weaker sex," as cited in a sexist piece-of-crap article I found by way of Feministe:

Girls’ minds are filled with notions of the sameness of the sexes, with its corollary that they can go where their sisters of yore feared to tread. Why, God forbid that we should tell them that, like it or not, they are the more vulnerable sex, and that this fact of life should inform their thinking

"The more vulnerable sex?" Yes, women are on average smaller and weaker than men (see above). But like slam-dunking, self-defense is not about being big and strong. Self defense can be about many things, including being armed, knowing how to fight, being assertive, being alert, and being willing to do vicious things like gouge someone's fucking eyes out if necessary.

The average 30 year-old American woman is somewhere around 5'4" 135lbs. That's 40 lbs and 4" shorter than the average male, so you might think she'd be an "easy target." But consider that world champion lightweight boxers are also around 135 lbs. Just how long would a 5' 8" 175 lb. "average guy" remain standing after trying to rape someone like Roberto Duran?

Because it's not about their size. Look at me: I'm about 5' 10," and when I'm in really good shape I weigh about 185 lbs, but Roberto Duran--hell, some kid from the local Golden Gloves gym down the street--would wipe the floor with me. I would get my ass kicked in virtually any fight, because although I may have testicles, I don't know how to fight. I was never taught how to fight, I've never been hit in the face, and I've never really punched anyone else. I also don't know how to handle myself in a crisis, I don't always pay attention to my surroundings, and I'm a pretty poor judge of character.

So if the average guy--who is a little shorter and lighter than I am--really wanted to rape me, he probably could. If he was the kind of person who's used to physically overpowering people to get his way, if he were armed, if he were at all experienced at serious fighting, I wouldn't really have a chance.

But I'm not afraid of that. I don't carry mace. I walk across campus at night alone. I don't even check my back seat before I get in my car. Yet, I'm not afraid of being raped. Why not?

'Cause I'm a guy, for Chrissake! Getting raped isn't about being "the more vulnerable sex." It's not about strength or size--it's not even about self-defense. I don't worry about rape because I do not live in a culture in which I am seen as "fair game" by a significant percentage of the violent fucktards in the world.

And that, my friend, is why it isn't about "sex" at all: it's about "gender." Women are not "the more vulnerable sex." Four inches and 40 pounds, a little less upper-body strength, and a little lower muscle mass do not make women more vulnerable to sexual assault, domestic violence, etc. Women are the more vulnerable gender--they are (again, on average) freighted with all the cultural assumptions that people make about each other, the training they undergo, the roles and expectations that are hammered into them literally from the day they are born. That's what makes women "more vulnerable."

And it's about the guy's gender, too. Being 6 inches taller and 65 pounds heavier does not make me somehow inherently more predatory than the average woman. Guys learn that we "deserve" sex, that sex is a commodity we can "take" from women if we want. Guys are taught that women are inherently sexualized and inherently victims. If it were about sex, size, and strength, then smaller-than-average guys would be just as vulnerable as women.

So, I'm sorry that this has taken so incredibly long to say, but it's complicated and real important. I know people have been rolling their eyes since 1975 about the whole "rape as a tool of societal dominance" thing, but dammit, it's true. Women don't get raped because they're shorter or weaker. They get raped because at its core, our society--or at the very least, a sizable minority of our society--still thinks that it's OK.

And that's what makes women the "more vulnerable gender."