Gender roles have evolved throughout history and societies, but biological differences are here to stay. How do these differences impact our life and body? And what differences are due to social pressure and education?
the full story
At conception, a sperm, carrying either an X or Y chromosome, fuses with an egg, which carries an X chromosome. In this process, a single cell, called a zygote, is formed. The combination of chromosomes inside the cell decides if the baby will be a boy or a girl.
An X and a Y chromosome create a male. And two X a female. Around 1 in 5000 of us happen to get a different chromosome combination. They are sometimes referred to as intersex and are proof that something as binary as male and female can be on a spectrum. For simplicity, we will compare typical men and women.
exploring gender diversity
At Birth, children are typically identified as boys or girls. Boys tend to be slightly larger and heavier than girls. Their heads are often a bit bigger too!
Within weeks, cultural norms start to reinforce traditional gender roles. This makes it difficult for scientists to know what behavioral differences are biological and which ones are socially constructed.
early development
During Childhood, boys tend to be more physically active, exhibiting greater interest in objects and exploration. They also begin to have a better understanding of three-dimensional space.
Girls are less active, take a higher interest in people, and seem to form a better understanding of them. They also learn new languages faster. At just 16 months, girls, on average, have a vocabulary of 95 words, more than 3 times that of boys.
Puberty and adolescence
During Puberty, kids become teenagers. Their bodies change, and the differences between boys and girls become more obvious. Around the ages of 8 to 13, girls start to get taller, their body shape begins to change, and hair grows in new places. This continues into their mid-to-late teens. Puberty also brings the start of their menstrual periods. Technically, they can now become pregnant, give birth, and feed their baby.
They also have elevated levels of the hormone estrogen, are highly social, and tend to show more empathy. Physically not as strong as their male counterparts, they exhibit a greater capacity to endure pain and can rival men in ultra-endurance runs.
Boys enter puberty a bit later, with a growth spurt that peaks around age 14. They develop more muscle mass, body hair, and a larger Adam’s apple, which gives them a deeper voice that can intimidate some and attract others. Boys also produce more testosterone and develop a higher aggression potential. They are now larger, faster, significantly stronger, and about 10x more likely to end up in jail.
Some teens now identify as a gender different from the sex assigned to them at birth and about 3-10% enter their reproductive years with an interest in the same sex.
reproductive years
During their Reproductive Years, and until their mid-thirties, both sexes are typically very good at making babies. But they face two very different risks.
Men can technically make a baby in minutes. Women however have to invest many months into pregnancy and give birth — with vast physical and psychological consequences. This puts them at a lot of risk if the relationship breaks apart. However, they do have one advantage. Once the newborn arrives, mothers can be certain that the infant is theirs. A father that loves and cares for a child risks finding out it is not his. And depending on the culture, 1-10% do unknowingly raise another man’s child. So what’s mama’s baby, is papa’s maybe.
A woman’s anxiety about becoming a mother with no help supporting the family and a man’s fear of paternal fraud is said to create very different concerns about cheating. One theory hence suggests that men tend to worry more about sexual infidelity. They want to make sure they’re raising the child they fathered. Women typically get more jealous when they feel emotionally betrayed. They worry that precious family resources are shared with someone else.
midlife challenges
In Mid Adulthood, men and women begin to lose some of their ability to make babies. If we study fertility by Age we see that women’s fertility drops from their early thirties and by their forties, chances of getting pregnant naturally are slim. Around their fifties they enter menopause and their periods stop. Men remain reproductive much longer, but from age 35, the chance of producing a faulty sperm cell increases exponentially with each passing year.
As they reach Late Adulthood, women live longer. Men die about 6 years younger, often of heart failure. Perhaps because they don’t care as much about their health and live a more risky life.
what do you think?
What do you think? How do sex differences influence our society and how does society influence them? And should we create laws and regulations to purposefully reduce the differences? Share your thoughts and comments below!
Sources
- Paternity fraud – Wikipedia.org
- Sex differences in crime – Wikipedia.org
- Woman – Wikipedia.org
- Man – Wikipedia.org
- Dworkin, J. (2023). Physical development in teens. University of Minnesota Extension
- Eliot, L. (2016). Brain Differences in Boys and Girls: How Much Is Inborn? Scientific American, 25 No. 1s (March 2016), p.64
- Goldman, B. (2017, May 22). How men’s and women’s brains are different. Stanford Medicine.
- Adani, S., & Cepanec, M. (2019). Sex differences in early communication development: behavioral and neurobiological indicators of more vulnerable communication system development in boys. Croatian medical journal, 60(2), 141–149.
- Sex differences in humans – Wikipedia.org
- Van Polanen, M., Colonnesi, C., Tavecchio, L. W. C., Blokhuis, S., & Fukkink, R. G. (2017). Men and women in childcare: a study of caregiver-child interactions. European Early Childhood Education Research Journal, 25(3), 412-424.
- Grysman, A., Fivush, R., Merrill, N.A. et al. The influence of gender and gender typicality on autobiographical memory across event types and age groups. Mem Cogn 44, 856–868 (2016).
- Todd, B. K., Barry, J. A., and Thommessen, S. A. O. (2017) Preferences for ‘Gender-typed’ Toys in Boys and Girls Aged 9 to 32 Months. Inf Child Dev, 26: e1986.
- Spinner, L., Cameron, L., & Calogero, R. (2018). Peer Toy Play as a Gateway to Children’s Gender Flexibility: The Effect of (Counter)Stereotypic Portrayals of Peers in Children’s Magazines. Sex roles, 79(5), 314–328.
- Alison A. Macintosh et al. , Prehistoric women’s manual labor exceeded that of athletes through the first 5500 years of farming in Central Europe. Sci. Adv.3,eaao3893(2017).
Dig deeper!
- Listen to A Conversation with David Buss’ podcast, episode 254: The Mating Strategies of Earthlings
- Women and men have been surveyed by Gallup each year concerning workplace topics, and when questioned about preferences of a female boss or a male boss, only 27% of females would prefer a boss of the same gender. This preference, among both sexes, for male leadership in the workplace has continued unabated for sixty years, according to the survey results.
- The idea of fatherhood in the history of humanity is relatively recent. In Mesopotamian prehistoric societies it could be common for women to have more than one lover, and children were brought up by a community rather than by two parents. The process that established the modern patriarchal family model stretched from 3100 to 600 B.C. in Mesopotamian society, and was later expanded and integrated through Judeo-Christian culture and religion, which persisted until today.
Classroom activity
In the following activity, students are going to learn about differences between males and females, how they impact society, and how society impacts them.
- Ask the class to identify six differences between men and women they can think of.
- Ask them for each of the differences they find if they think it is biological, or social.
- Show the class Sprouts’ video about Sex Differences
- Ask the class again to find 6 differences between men and women, but this time to find 3 that are socially driven and 3 that are driven by biology.
- Ask the class if we should create laws and regulations to purposefully reduce the differences.
Collaborators
- Script: Ludovico Saint Amour di Chanaz and Jonas Koblin
- Artist: Pascal Gaggelli
- Voice: Matt Abbott
- Coloring: Nalin
- Editing: Peera Lertsukittipongsa
- Production: Selina Bador
- Sound Design: Miguel Ojeda
