Men superiority. women superiority .

MEN SUPERIORITY. WOMEN SUPERIORITY .

First men’s domination is revealed at the age of 3 years old, and it reaches its peak at 5-11, some separate “splashes” are observed at 14, 17, 29 and 41. There are distinguished the following groups of indices: speech articulation, its decoding, word stock (during pictures description and by oral commands, also by word IQ), speech quickness, speed of reading, comprehension of the read material and intellectual indices.

Among these results is distinguished intellectual component. Boys domination in articulation is observed at the age of 7.

Girls and women domination is a much brighter index in the quantity as well as in the age range. Here we can mention the following conformities. Women domination begins at the age of 6 months, it continues in the other age periods (from 3 to 21) and finishes (by the obtained data) at 84 years old.

This domination is equally revealed in all cultures, also among simple contestants as well as among the gifted ones, i.e. during comparing gifted boys and girls.

Since E. Maccoby and K. Jacklin first published their book (the first edition was issued in 1974) there are still argues around gender differences in math abilities. The research embraced huge amount of contestants – more than 309 thousands. Some scientists studied speech abilities and here they found a real girls’ domination.

Nevertheless the results of speech development were not disputed so strongly as the results connected with math abilities. Let’s group these results by the methods and age and see what they demonstrate.

First of all, a lot of results witness the absence of gender differences. It concerns mainly calculating abilities, also non-verbal IQ. Girls’ domination is observed in the tasks to numerate and count: they are comparatively easy typical tasks, and it is not surprising that girls who outstrip the boys in development, fulfill them either better than boys or, at least, do not yield them.

More often there was revealed domination of boys and men. It begins since 12 and continues to 21 years old (there were no later research), touching different parameters (considerations, calculating abilities, math achievements and during the test), and continues during the choice of gifted boys (when gifted girls are compared to gifted boys), their development coincides with the development of non-verbal intellect. All these conformities show a greater domination of boys and teens over girls in math abilities1

Still this problem is one of the most arguable in woman psychology and still there exist absurd calls to ban such research.

Let’s note again that scientific results shouldn’t call forth such emotions. We can disagree with the methods of research, discuss the ways of data processing, but we can’t ban to research anything. In particular, in the field of math abilities it is necessary, first, to conduct forming experiments aimed to find an answer to the question whether girls can improve these abilities if they are taught by a special program, second, to find out the reasons of fear before math.

Probably, parents and teachers frighten children (and first of all, the girls) saying that mathematics is a scary science which cannot be understood. Third, it is necessary to make a gender expertise of the text-books in math. Can the tasks be formulated differently in order to be understood by girls? Besides that, a lot of boys have poor progress in math too, are they “unreal” boys? What are the causes of this failure for the boys (who are not prohibited to study math)? All these questions require further research and not the calls to ban them.

RESEARCH OF ADULTS’ EMOTIONAL STATE

Research of emotional state of adults beginning with H. Heimanns and finishing with new editions in most cases show women’s domination. We can’t say this question is solved yet. Let’s see the concrete results given in the article by S. Cross and L. Madson (1997) and in other books.

The following empirical facts witness women’s more emotional state:

• More anxiety of women in comparison to men (meta-analysis by A. Feingold, 1194);
• Girls and women consider the emotional connection with personal relations more important than boys and men (Shields);
• Women are more sensible than men to negative life events which their friends and relatives experience (Kessler and colleagues);
• Women are more exposed to depression (Kenny and colleagues);
• Women more often speak about their negative emotions such as sorrow and fear (Fudgit and colleagues);
• Positive emotions are experienced more vividly by women (Hurner);
• Girls and women are not embarrassed to show their emotional reactions (Maccoby, Jacklin, 1978);
• Women dominate over men in the field of non-verbal expression: they are more accurate in non-verbal expression of their emotions and better decode the same emotional signals of the others (Embedy and colleagues).

The indirect evidence of women’s more emotionality are the data of less emotional state of men :

• Boys and men do not try to show their emotions especially negative (Fuchs and colleagues);
• They are emotionally reserved even with their male friends (Heies);
• They are exposed to more tough than women regulations from the society concerning the demonstration of their emotional feelings (Lafrance and colleagues).

GENDER IDENTITY

Since childhood a man identifies himself with a definite gender. He has a subjective “feeling of gender” and develops definite characteristics of a personality – masculine and feminine. They don’t have to coincide with the gender – a man can possess feminine traits, and a woman – masculine, there are also met original combinations of both traits.

One of the factors influencing the formation of such characteristics is gender ideology – a notion about qualities desired to be possessed by a man or a woman. One of the components of gender identity is the formation of sexual orientation and the choice of the desired sexual partner.

In the ideas about gender identity there can be distinguished 4 stages (though this term appeared only in 1970-s, before there existed its analogues: sexual or gender-role identification, identification with the definite gender etc.). Let’s consider them in detail.

The second stage is connected with S. Freud and later his followers and includes the period from 1920-s until 1970-s. In his work “Femininity” (this title could be considered symbolic) Freud described women as being envy with men anatomy (the so called castration complex) and concluded that “feminine” features are passivity, dependence and inclination to subordination. He considered men active and seeking power.

The third stage – 70-80-s of the 20 th cent is connected with the names of 2 women – Sandra Bam and Judith Spence. To explain different variants of gender identity they took an idea of androgyny.

The first stage (before Freud) refers to the beginning of the 20 th cent. In early research devoted to woman psychology (H. Heimanns, P.Ye. Astafiyev and others) there reflected a naïve worldly notion that woman should conform to some ideal (formed in a society): to be emotional, enigmatic, languorous, weak, careful, a good mother, i.e. be feminine (in behavior, clothes, hair-do, work). Those people who deviated from this ideal were blamed and ostracized.

The fourth stage embraces the last several years.

American researchers Meliry Tailor and Judith Hall conducted meta-analysis of the works devoted to androgyny. They used a traditional (Freud) model of psychological prosperity (a notion that men should be masculine and women - feminine), androgyny model (it is rather in Bam’s opinion – a combination of moderately expressed masculinity and femininity), feminine model (possessing feminine features provides individual a prosperity in the society) and masculine model (psychological prosperity is connected with domination of masculine features).

GENDER IDEOLOGY

For the recent time there began to develop cross-cultural research of gender ideology. An interesting material is connected in the book by N.M. Lebedeva (1999). There were considered the ideas of which qualities were more desired for men and women in 14 countries.

It was found out that in the developed countries the idea of egalitarity (gender equality) was popular, and in traditional cultures (especially in Muslim – India, Pakistan, Nigeria) - the idea of gender differences. In Japan, a country with traditional gender ideology, there are different view in different generations: the older prefer the idea of inequality, the younger – equality, but a specific one; MANY Japanese women prefer to be leaders in the families, but they don’t want leadership at work.

Cross-cultural research of gender roles showed that the differences of these roles are connected with the type of culture:

• Americans value independence more than obedience in both genders, Japanese – only in men (it’s clear why – though both cultures are masculine, the first is individualist, and the second - collectivist);
• In feminine cultures with a low distance of power (Scandinavian countries) families are personally oriented with equal distribution of power and participation in the decisions of all its members; in masculine cultures with a high distance of power (Japan, Greece, Malaysia, Mexico) the roles of men and women are strictly differentiated, a family is a hierarchy where the decisions are taken by an authority, a head of family (often, a man);

In families of individualist cultures more close are “horizontal” relations (between a husband and a wife), and in collectivist – “vertical” ones (between parents and children).

Today gender stereotypes are changing, but differently in various layers of a society. Thus, feminine stereotype was formed in 19 th cent., but is still popular (in men’s opinion): a woman should be tender, beautiful, mild, sweet at the same time passive and dependent. But, in the women’s opinion a modern woman should be smart, energetic, quick, i.e. possessing men’s qualities.

Masculinity stereotype has also changed: traditionally it meant physical power, suppressed tenderness, functional attitude to a woman and at the same time lack of restraint in the expression of anger and passion.

Modern picture is different: intellect is valued more than physical power, the expression of tender feelings and soul subtlety is admitted, the tame of “rude” feelings is necessary, though with less educated people masculinity stereotype stays traditional (as well as with teenagers).

On the whole, we can state that modern culture is distinguished by its ideas about gender differences and equality from the previous cultures.

Men have another correlation – they consider themselves self-reliant though they are not. So, men try to compensate their low self-evaluation thinking they are confident.

These data demonstrate that the reason of differences between genders in self-evaluation is in the desire to meet the stereotyped requirements existing in the society, which prescribe men and women a definite behavior (here the traditional: men are more sure, women are not sure in themselves), it does not always meet their true wishes and potential possibilities.

Here we can also observe the influence of gender stereotypes. Society prescribes boys and men to achieve success, be unique, original, competitive etc., it serves as a constant support: if an individual corresponds to the stereotype, he gets positive support (he is praised, respected and admired), if he does not correspond it – follows a negative evaluation of a personality.

Accordingly, self-reliance is changed. Evidently, boys and men have to use a mighty defense of their self-evaluation which testifies their more complex personal problems, but this suggestion needs special testing in the future research.