We often see a women complaining about a men, to that man or to other women. We less often see the gender-reversed scenario. At least that is what I see, in friends, family, movies, and music. Yes, men roll their eyes, and perhaps in general women talk more about people. But women complain more, even taking these into account. Why?
omg what a load of crap. some dudebro whos never heard of male privelege. women do have worse lives, like blacks and indigenous they work in a system that disadvantages them and benefits white, straight, cis males. and btw dale spender showed that MEN TALK MORE THAN WOMEn whether the metric is length or number of words in mixed sex classrooms; that teachers pay more attention to boys and in mixed sex classrooms when girls (who compromised over 1/2 the class) got 1/3rd of the attention boys complained "that girls were getting more than their fair share'
womens lives are worse, and thus they complain more. mens complaints are taken seriously because theres no such thing as institutionalized sexism against males (or reverse racism for that matter)
gettings off this blog. you'd rather get raped that cuckolded?? AHAHAHAH yeah. right. and where do you get off saying that rape is a less reproductive harm than being cuckolded? HOW is it less of a harm.
and yes its totally womens drinking that causes them to get raped. thats why in nations where alcohol is banned, rape is so low (not).
I know, this discussion is long over, but still...
My parents were both born in the GDR (a former socialist country, as most of you may know).In my normal social surroundings I never had the impression that women were complaining more (or less) then men. On the other side I noticed that in social circles more tied to 'capitalist' values women and men both tend to complain more about the opposite sex.
Most women complain more than men because it works for them. Most men react to complaints primarily by pleasing the women. Most men do not like conflict.
Most men do not complain NOT because its a sign of weakness but because it will just create conflict.
Most men do not like conflict because conflict between men normally cause violence. Due to most men being more aggressive in general than women.
Most conflict between women don't typically end in violence.
Women don't have worse lives than men. People live their lives as they choose to. Women can live their lives just as men do.
Women could work in the 1800s and before but many chose not to. Hard working dirty butchers with golddigging shopaholic princesses. When life expectancy is 40 and death rate is high for children having a bunch of children at 15 makes more sense than not. After all you need someone to care for you in your bed-ridden years. And their wasnt technology to make life easier (washers, dryers, fridges, cars, white collar work, natural resources, etc) and plenty of war, starvation, epidemics, etc.
Your welcome for creating society, the roads, government, military, irrigation, houses, buildings, jobs, cars, medicine etc so that we could live in a society where women dont have to farm/have babies "against their will". Men didnt complain when women called them pansies for not fighting in WW2. They joined up. And men still dont complain while half of domestic violence is against them.
ser, perhaps you are content to live in a monkey society but i am not. also, as Discovery channel would show us, the bonobo monkeys apparently succeeded where humans have failed.
yes, men suffer also, and at a time even whole races were considered less then human. my point is that some of the men suffered some of the time but almost ALL of the women suffered almost ALL of the time. but, let us bygones be bygones, water under the bridge, yes?
the question at hand is why women complain more then men. if that is true, and i really do not have the data to prove either way except from my own experience and that is that both sexes complain equally and there are more differences between members of the same sex then between the sexes. but if it is true, than it is most likely because you men (most of you anyway) have your fists and your muscles and strength to serve you as tools for proving yourself and getting what you want, while, alas, us women have but our words, tears and cunts for weapons, and so we use them..need we apologize for that or refrain for using them?
besides, i must be very lucky to have found someone who i understand and who understands me so i hardly nag at all, and he has very few complaints as well... at least concerning the "The two big", for i have no lack of sexual desire and am not prone to irrational responses. and can cook too. so maybe those who complain more have more reason to complain and it is more a matter of choosing the right mate then inherent female/male behavior.
the day when i start to care about whether i am welcomed to a blog, or anywhere else for that matter, is the day i give up life and go live in the woods somewhere. i know who i am and where i stand, and people can take it or leave it, read it or not, it is all one to me.
As a female member of the OB community, welcome. May I please address 3 of your points briefly?
"for almost the entire history of human race women were treated as second class citizens"
Alas Ilsa, monkey society is ugly; girl monkeys have a hard time. Evolution sucks that way. But let me politely point out that for most of human history, even up to the more widespread adoption of universal suffrage, most men were slaves and second class citizens too. Moneky society is also cruel to beta males.
"i still have to fight to be taken seriously in my line of work and not only as a pretty doll or a child that plays at being a programmer"
Clearly you are working at the wrong firm. Maybe you should come work for me, where we have many highly valued women programmers and tech managers with multiple PhDs, often from Europe, India, and Russia.
"selfish, egocentric, spoiled"
Ilsa please hear me in good faith when I attest that the general OB community is not so. Women are actually more welcome here than on other blogs, I have found.
"Women also ignore, disrespect, abandon, and beat men. Women rarely rape men, but they do cuckold them. Men suffer more health and violence problems, and the standard evolutionary story is that men suffer a higher outcome variance, and so have more disappointments."
well, boo-fucking-hoo, poor men. you seem to forget that for almost the entire history of human race women were treated as second class citizens, practically slaves. in almost ALL cultures of the world they were encouraged to look pretty, keep their mouth shut, spread their legs and give birth to a male child. no right to vote, no right to higher education. not until relatively recently was the plying field leveled and women were given equal status as men (and even that is not true for all the countries yet). and still years after we won our right to be regarded as human beings of equal value as men i still have to fight to be taken seriously in my line of work and not only as a pretty doll or a child that plays at being a programmer but is not capable of real mental accomplishments as that is reserved solely for the "big boys".
and yes, maybe we do react more emotionally then men do, but that is mostly brought on by mens tendency to dismiss any comments they don't want to hear and it drives us crazy because it would drive anyone crazy to be dismissed and ignored like that. and also, is it so fucking hard to do something nice for us once in a while just to show us that we are loved, that you care and think of us? we need that, and if it really is that hard for you guys then i apologize for the inconvenience(and the following profanity), you selfish, egocentric, spoiled assholes.
Men complain less often? As far as I know, men often complain about women in general, and to their partners in particular. You seem to forget about the extremely long history of learned books by men about women, beginning in the mists of time. Say, Aristotle. All the way to Freud saying that the greatest mystery of the mind, that he never managed to fathom, is what women want. Or more recently, to John McCain complaining about women's "health" (his quotes) being used as an excuse to have abortions.
For an example of the male gaze as it has structured thousands of years of representation, and a mythos of gender difference which has culturally influenced the socialization of people into men and women to the present day, see the header of this blog.
It would appear to me that the original argument is based on anecdotal evidence, something that is highly subjective and subject to confirmation bias. It is unclear to me how much of this is based in actual well-designed research.
The main place I see women "complaining" more than men is in relationships with them. This seems to me to be associated with the phenomenon of female choice. The women "kick the males tires", make efforts to improve him, and assess his worth relative to other males, and relative to other women's mates. The whole "you'd better shape up"/"hen-pecked husband" thing. Male choice exists too in humans - as Brin argues - but it's not the same.
I've never heard the explanation that women complain more because their lives are worse.
Also, men complain much more than women do about poor performances by their local football team. Perhaps women complain more about relationships (if they do) because they care more about relationships.
Heh, it looks as though the girls have tracked Robin down.
Following up to Differenceblog's post on the topic.
... I found this: research on the topic - by two woman:
The results indicate that, while the men and women in this sample made equivalent numbers of complaints, they used complaints for different reasons. Women were more likely than men to use complaints as an indirect request for action, while men were more likely to use complaints to excuse behavior or to make themselves seem superior.- Gender and expressions of dissatisfaction: a study of complaining in mixed-gendered student work groups.
Also:
Women appear to be slightly more likely to nag, complain, and whine than men (Conway and Vartanian 2000), and this verbal behavior has been found to be more stable for women over the course of a relationship than it is for men (Gottman and Levenson 1999). However, Jess K. Alberts (1988) found that while wives complained more often than husbands, this difference was not statistically significant.- Purposes and Types of Complaints
Dare I point out a gradually-emerging pattern: research by women finds no significant quantitative difference between the sexes in complaint volume? ;-)
They are observations, not complaints.
Absolute shit.White western women are the most privileged class of human to walk the planet.
Men complain about women plenty. Calling women "crazy bitches," "psychos," etc.
omg what a load of crap. some dudebro whos never heard of male privelege. women do have worse lives, like blacks and indigenous they work in a system that disadvantages them and benefits white, straight, cis males. and btw dale spender showed that MEN TALK MORE THAN WOMEn whether the metric is length or number of words in mixed sex classrooms; that teachers pay more attention to boys and in mixed sex classrooms when girls (who compromised over 1/2 the class) got 1/3rd of the attention boys complained "that girls were getting more than their fair share'
womens lives are worse, and thus they complain more. mens complaints are taken seriously because theres no such thing as institutionalized sexism against males (or reverse racism for that matter)
gettings off this blog. you'd rather get raped that cuckolded?? AHAHAHAH yeah. right. and where do you get off saying that rape is a less reproductive harm than being cuckolded? HOW is it less of a harm.
and yes its totally womens drinking that causes them to get raped. thats why in nations where alcohol is banned, rape is so low (not).
I know, this discussion is long over, but still...
My parents were both born in the GDR (a former socialist country, as most of you may know).In my normal social surroundings I never had the impression that women were complaining more (or less) then men. On the other side I noticed that in social circles more tied to 'capitalist' values women and men both tend to complain more about the opposite sex.
Most women complain more than men because it works for them. Most men react to complaints primarily by pleasing the women. Most men do not like conflict.
Most men do not complain NOT because its a sign of weakness but because it will just create conflict.
Most men do not like conflict because conflict between men normally cause violence. Due to most men being more aggressive in general than women.
Most conflict between women don't typically end in violence.
Women don't have worse lives than men. People live their lives as they choose to. Women can live their lives just as men do.
Women could work in the 1800s and before but many chose not to. Hard working dirty butchers with golddigging shopaholic princesses. When life expectancy is 40 and death rate is high for children having a bunch of children at 15 makes more sense than not. After all you need someone to care for you in your bed-ridden years. And their wasnt technology to make life easier (washers, dryers, fridges, cars, white collar work, natural resources, etc) and plenty of war, starvation, epidemics, etc.
Your welcome for creating society, the roads, government, military, irrigation, houses, buildings, jobs, cars, medicine etc so that we could live in a society where women dont have to farm/have babies "against their will". Men didnt complain when women called them pansies for not fighting in WW2. They joined up. And men still dont complain while half of domestic violence is against them.
...
ser, perhaps you are content to live in a monkey society but i am not. also, as Discovery channel would show us, the bonobo monkeys apparently succeeded where humans have failed.
yes, men suffer also, and at a time even whole races were considered less then human. my point is that some of the men suffered some of the time but almost ALL of the women suffered almost ALL of the time. but, let us bygones be bygones, water under the bridge, yes?
the question at hand is why women complain more then men. if that is true, and i really do not have the data to prove either way except from my own experience and that is that both sexes complain equally and there are more differences between members of the same sex then between the sexes. but if it is true, than it is most likely because you men (most of you anyway) have your fists and your muscles and strength to serve you as tools for proving yourself and getting what you want, while, alas, us women have but our words, tears and cunts for weapons, and so we use them..need we apologize for that or refrain for using them?
besides, i must be very lucky to have found someone who i understand and who understands me so i hardly nag at all, and he has very few complaints as well... at least concerning the "The two big", for i have no lack of sexual desire and am not prone to irrational responses. and can cook too. so maybe those who complain more have more reason to complain and it is more a matter of choosing the right mate then inherent female/male behavior.
the day when i start to care about whether i am welcomed to a blog, or anywhere else for that matter, is the day i give up life and go live in the woods somewhere. i know who i am and where i stand, and people can take it or leave it, read it or not, it is all one to me.
@Ilsa
As a female member of the OB community, welcome. May I please address 3 of your points briefly?
"for almost the entire history of human race women were treated as second class citizens"
Alas Ilsa, monkey society is ugly; girl monkeys have a hard time. Evolution sucks that way. But let me politely point out that for most of human history, even up to the more widespread adoption of universal suffrage, most men were slaves and second class citizens too. Moneky society is also cruel to beta males.
"i still have to fight to be taken seriously in my line of work and not only as a pretty doll or a child that plays at being a programmer"
Clearly you are working at the wrong firm. Maybe you should come work for me, where we have many highly valued women programmers and tech managers with multiple PhDs, often from Europe, India, and Russia.
"selfish, egocentric, spoiled"
Ilsa please hear me in good faith when I attest that the general OB community is not so. Women are actually more welcome here than on other blogs, I have found.
"Women also ignore, disrespect, abandon, and beat men. Women rarely rape men, but they do cuckold them. Men suffer more health and violence problems, and the standard evolutionary story is that men suffer a higher outcome variance, and so have more disappointments."
well, boo-fucking-hoo, poor men. you seem to forget that for almost the entire history of human race women were treated as second class citizens, practically slaves. in almost ALL cultures of the world they were encouraged to look pretty, keep their mouth shut, spread their legs and give birth to a male child. no right to vote, no right to higher education. not until relatively recently was the plying field leveled and women were given equal status as men (and even that is not true for all the countries yet). and still years after we won our right to be regarded as human beings of equal value as men i still have to fight to be taken seriously in my line of work and not only as a pretty doll or a child that plays at being a programmer but is not capable of real mental accomplishments as that is reserved solely for the "big boys".
and yes, maybe we do react more emotionally then men do, but that is mostly brought on by mens tendency to dismiss any comments they don't want to hear and it drives us crazy because it would drive anyone crazy to be dismissed and ignored like that. and also, is it so fucking hard to do something nice for us once in a while just to show us that we are loved, that you care and think of us? we need that, and if it really is that hard for you guys then i apologize for the inconvenience(and the following profanity), you selfish, egocentric, spoiled assholes.
Men complain less often? As far as I know, men often complain about women in general, and to their partners in particular. You seem to forget about the extremely long history of learned books by men about women, beginning in the mists of time. Say, Aristotle. All the way to Freud saying that the greatest mystery of the mind, that he never managed to fathom, is what women want. Or more recently, to John McCain complaining about women's "health" (his quotes) being used as an excuse to have abortions.
For an example of the male gaze as it has structured thousands of years of representation, and a mythos of gender difference which has culturally influenced the socialization of people into men and women to the present day, see the header of this blog.
It would appear to me that the original argument is based on anecdotal evidence, something that is highly subjective and subject to confirmation bias. It is unclear to me how much of this is based in actual well-designed research.
The main place I see women "complaining" more than men is in relationships with them. This seems to me to be associated with the phenomenon of female choice. The women "kick the males tires", make efforts to improve him, and assess his worth relative to other males, and relative to other women's mates. The whole "you'd better shape up"/"hen-pecked husband" thing. Male choice exists too in humans - as Brin argues - but it's not the same.
I've never heard the explanation that women complain more because their lives are worse.
Also, men complain much more than women do about poor performances by their local football team. Perhaps women complain more about relationships (if they do) because they care more about relationships.
Heh, it looks as though the girls have tracked Robin down.
Following up to Differenceblog's post on the topic.
... I found this: research on the topic - by two woman:
The results indicate that, while the men and women in this sample made equivalent numbers of complaints, they used complaints for different reasons. Women were more likely than men to use complaints as an indirect request for action, while men were more likely to use complaints to excuse behavior or to make themselves seem superior.- Gender and expressions of dissatisfaction: a study of complaining in mixed-gendered student work groups.
Also:
Women appear to be slightly more likely to nag, complain, and whine than men (Conway and Vartanian 2000), and this verbal behavior has been found to be more stable for women over the course of a relationship than it is for men (Gottman and Levenson 1999). However, Jess K. Alberts (1988) found that while wives complained more often than husbands, this difference was not statistically significant.- Purposes and Types of Complaints
Dare I point out a gradually-emerging pattern: research by women finds no significant quantitative difference between the sexes in complaint volume? ;-)