Born to do Math 158 – Off the Handle
Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen and Rick Rosner
Publication (Outlet/Website): Born To Do Math
Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2020/02/22
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Scott Douglas Jacobsen: On the one hand, there is the notion of eggs being expensive and sperm being cheap…
Rosner: …which is the idea of men being more expendable than women. You have lower impulse control associated with guys. My girlfriend in college was always going through some files at the college library.
The idea was that the idea of men in this country is true around the world or consistent. Wherever there are guys, there is less impulse control. The action orientation is connected to masculinity in our culture. Guys are expected to do something or want to do something, even if it is wrong.
Guys might crack because of expectations that guys should be successful, creating more pressure on guys. A lot of this stuff is subject to change, as society has been examining ideas of masculinity and femininity.
You could argue guys might be more comfortable as slackers or society may be comfortable with it than in the 1950s. As a general idea, the expectations and the stereotypes about guys and masculinity put pressure on guys, which generates a range of guy behaviours both good and bad.
Versus stereotypical female behaviours that are laying back and having things happen like Emily Dickinson with being okay with having a quiet life, it is like you said, ‘A guy can knock up a gazillion women. A woman is more precious biologically because a woman has the babymaking technology. It is a huge biological commitment.’
A guy just has to jizz. He can make several women pregnant with one batch. But there isn’t someone walking around with a test tube and a turkey baster. Is there another reason for guys losing their shit more than women if that is indeed so?
Jacobsen: Probably two or three things, one, more testosterone than estrogen. Two, the genetics that is preprogramming a set of an interrelated network of reactions along with the testosterone. It has to do with genetics encoding certain types of reactions in proportion to the amount of testosterone and estrogen ratio that men are more likely to have, which, in itself, is being preprogrammed in terms of how much is being produced.
Rosner: There’s also the idea that women have a larger corpus callosum, which is a fibre bundle that connects the two hemispheres. One can make an argument from this that women think more holistically – though, it is the wrong word – or globally, and may be less likely to go off half-cocked or less likely to take action without considering the consequences.
But that sounds like something I learned in a class in the 80s; that’s probably been or potentially been debunked. I do know the corpus callosum is thicker. I don’t know if it has consequences for masculinity and femininity or not.
I don’t know if we have covered all the reasons for men losing their shit more than women.
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