It is noteworthy that such statistics are not solely reflecting preferences, they may also reflect effects of the dating app itself! Among the many hidden psychological bugs in Tinder, an especially toxic one is that new users are presented with the most attractive profiles first. So the fact that many men don't get anything while others get a lot might be strongly amplified by a system that simply HIDES AWAY those other people.

It is however not the only data point which points in this direction. Population statistics from both Sweden and Norway show that men are about twice as likely to not have children that women.

It would be interesting to see more formal studies on the topic, but as far as I know there is no collaborating data to support the theory that the data we have is an artifact from the dating app.

Moreover, online dating is a different market. See "Online Dating and the Death of the 'Mixed-Attractiveness' Couple" https://priceonomics.com/online-dating-and-the-death-of-the-.... And well, it varies from an app to an app, when it comes to the details.

Interesting stories both.

Did you ever get around to writing part 3?

There are two drafts, ~1.5 year old.

"Social skills (not only) for aspies" and "Nice guys, friend zone and creepiness". Though starting is easy, finishing is hard.

I'd be glad to see them finished. But, I know, plenty of claims on limited time.

In the article, you write:

>If you firmly believe we are blank slates, and the only innate difference between the sexes is body shape, take a look at this thread:

But very few people believe this; it's better to characterise the argument as saying that many of the differences we see relating to the dynamics between the sexes are a product of society and culture, and the Reddit thread you linked underneath doesn't really refute that notion. I think it's more important that we try and understand the culture that produces these effects rather than inferring essential traits about humans without consulting the historical record.

You're correct that most sensible people understand that environmental and inherent biological differences both contribute to behaviors. But the pathological mode of thinking that people are becoming increasingly sensitive to is the willingness to assert environmental causes in the absence of biological or nonsociological evidence. It's precisely this having a default position that makes it an ideological way of thinking.

The gender wage gap is the clearest example at the moment, which was able to get people riled up on the 77 cents on the dollar figure, as purportedly being not only due primarily to environmental reasons, but specifically due to patriarchal socialization and sexism. The thing is, the initial figure was incredibly irresponsible, as it didn't control for field worked in, let alone specific profession, let alone seniority, output, hours worked, rate negotiated. The more of these figures are controlled for, the more the gap diminishes. But the problem is, people still look at the remainder as "okay well then there's a 7% gap, and that's still a problem." But my question is, "why?" They default back to the assumption that the remainder after what has since been controlled for is specifically the result of patriarchal sexism, simply because of a remaining disparity. That is ideological.

>But my question is, "why?"

Because they view the issue as being conditioned by today's society; while I admit it's not best to jump to such a conclusion without serious critical investigation, I find it tiresome that you call it "ideological" - as if an explanation which specifically seeks to avert any critical view of the development of Western society isn't itself "ideological". Is it the result of the sexism of patriarchal society? Let's find out by consulting sociology, critical theory and philosophy. A critical understanding of the issues wouldn't stop at merely controlling for the pay gap, for instance, it would ask why women negotiate less, why they tend to work fewer hours etc. Roswitha Scholz put it well:

>We have also to account for the fact that under capitalism reproductive activities emerge that are primarily carried out by women. Accordingly, value dissociation means that capitalism contains a core of female-determined reproductive activities and the affects, characteristics, and attitudes (emotionality, sensuality, and female or motherly caring) that are dissociated from value and abstract labor. Female relations of existence — that is, female reproductive activities under capitalism — are therefore of a different character from abstract labor, which is why they cannot straightforwardly be subsumed under the concept of labor.

>[...] Prior to this, women were largely regarded as just another variant of being-man, which is one of the reasons that the social and historical sciences have throughout the last fifteen years stressed the pervasiveness of the single-gender model upon which pre-bourgeois societies were based. Even the vagina was in the context of this model frequently understood as a penis, inverted and pushed into the lower body. Despite the fact that women were largely regarded as inferior, prior to the development of a large-scale modern public, there still existed for them a variety of possibilities for gaining social influence. In premodern and early modern societies, man occupied a largely symbolic position of hegemony. Women were not yet exclusively confined to domestic life and motherhood, as has been the case since the eighteenth century. Women’s contributions to material reproduction were in agrarian societies regarded as equally important as the contributions of men.

> an explanation which specifically seeks to avert any critical

This is false. The default of critical rationalists is not to avert critical view. It is directly the opposite. There is nothing to support the claim that criticism of the 77 cent theory is specifically out to avert critical review.

I would claim that it is very likely that those who disagree with the science behind the 77 cent theory are more than willing in participate in a critical view of the development of Western society. A common theory among those is that society forces men to prioritize higher income over other life choices, leaving them with fewer choices compared to women. Relative low income has a disproportional negative effect for men on the Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs scale compared to women. Thus men are more likely to take higher risk jobs if it rewards higher pay, have a higher risk profile in negotiations, sacrifice health in order to work more hours etc. It is just as much an critical view of the development of Western society as the theory of "patriarchal socialization". It just not the same view.

> under capitalism reproductive activities emerge that are primarily carried out by women

Those reproductive activities can be viewed across the near entirety of the animal kingdom.

And the societal "value dissociation" of child-rearing is not a product of capitalism. Across large communities, the value of child rearing is mostly realized within the context of a family unit. That just means that to entities outside of the family unit, the caring for the child has very little value. That's not to say that the general wellbeing of children across the society has no collective value to those within, which is why most people support access to education, child protective services, and things of this nature. Within a family unit, however, the person handling the child-rearing is of substantial value.

Your claim seems to be that:

1.) capitalism results in the dissociation of value for reproductive activities

2.) capitalism results in these activities primarily being carried out by women

3.) therefore, capitalism is responsible for assigning women a role and simultaneously undervaluing it

If this is not your claim, and please note that it is extremely difficult to actually discern a logical position from the text provided, please feel free to clarify.

If that IS your claim, then I would suggest that my counter is that:

1.) Capitalism only undervalues child-rearing if you fail to understand that the objectives of capitalism are predicated on the individual objectives of the entities within. The reproductive interest of a particular entity tends to be disproportionately valuable to that entity and their partner, much more than a third party. To say that capitalism undervalues that objective is simply contingent on the context.

2.) Capitalism "results" in these activities primarily being carried out by women only insofar as capitalism is a system in which individuals can act according to their own objectives. Many women do not want to reproduce at all. Many women do not want to be with men at all. This is completely fine, and never-married women with no children tend to be highly successful in other dimensions. Many women, however, do want to reproduce, and the fact that women and men tend to diverge in their roles regarding child rearing is not simply something that can simply be asserted as being a consequence of capitalism. Our capitalist systems are not collapsing under the increasing likelihood for a woman to be partnered with someone is less educated and makes less money.

> Capitalism only undervalues child-rearing if you fail to understand that the objectives of capitalism are predicated on the individual objectives of the entities within

I don't think this is true at all, since the ideological role of capitalism (and its class role) tends to encourage accumulation of capital above all else, so whatever can be made into capital-accumulating value will be, for instance over the past 50 years digital goods (and other otherwise freely reproducible goods) have been subsumed into capital - capital did this through its political arms, e.g the creation of copyright law. In the same way, capital may use its political arms to encourage 'family values', in a non-obvious alliance between the neo-conservatives in the 80s and the neolibreals. I understand value in the Marxian sense as a social relation, not value as in a purely "subjective" judgement. Value is both objective and subjective, in that it exists supersensibly but that existence is conditioned by a variety of objective social factors.

> Many women do not want to reproduce at all.

I find this line of argument relatively unconvincing, because it only works by assuming we are in total control of what we want, and that being ignorant of the origin of our desires, we assume them to come from within ourselves. It's a neat ideological point, but from social psychological perspectives is too simplistic to have much explanatory power. The point of my critique is that capitalism not only arranges society in a particular economic mode, but that this arrangement is therefore reflected in culture and society. Your argument is that capitalism gives the choice, and the choice is being taken, but this does not at all explain the context in which the decision is made in the first place, which is usually for economic reasons (whether the choice maker knows it or not).

>Many women, however, do want to reproduce, and the fact that women and men tend to diverge in their roles regarding child rearing is not simply something that can simply be asserted as being a consequence of capitalism.

I didn't claim that the difference in roles is solely due to capitalism, my claim is that the division of the roles between men and women works well with the liberal distinction between public and private - what is private ostensibly cannot be touched (by capital, by the state, by anyone) but what is public can be regulated by society in general (through the market) or by the government. The choices to remain an unmarried woman or to marry and have children are greatly dependent, before they reach the forefront of the mind, on the economic conditions of society.

The "family unit" is ideological, the free choice to "work hard" is ideological (see Weber's dissection of the "protestant work ethic" and capitalist society), the notion that many (even today) hold that women should be primarily caregivers in the home is ideological (along with its cousin, the belief that emotional or even reproductive labour does not truly count as labour because it is not valorized). These ideologies come about due to the economic system that underlies them, capitalism. Under different economic systems, or even different time periods, these ideologies are not present, or they are in a different form (see the last paragraph of my comment).

"men" arent forcing "women" to work as nurses etc., nor are they stopping them from negotiating forcefully.

how is it sexism that nurses get paid less than office workers? thats wage inequality, not sexism.

And honestly, women tend to be more amicable... thats a trait thats hard to have if you want to get higher in the work hierachy, as thats often gained by walking over other people.

take a step back and reread his comment. each of his points are valid.

Let's break this down a bit in more detail. The most common claim against the 77/79 ratio can be summarized as 'if you control for occupation, seniority (interpreted as "time-in-seat" as opposed to some sort of rank gradation) and preference for reasonable hours/schedule, you effectively reduce the 20%+ gender gap to around 7%.'

There are many reasons for this, and the argument is that not all of this can be attributed to direct 'sexist' (bad) practices, but are instead the result of preferences that are more common to women than men (while this is indeed gendered, the accusation of 'discrimination' is more complex - if you somehow convinced all women to share identical preferences to men, these 'preference' differences would effectively disappear)

[0] https://scholar.harvard.edu/files/bolotnyy/files/be_genderga...

You're doing precisely what I described. If women are not in a field, it must therefore be that the field is not open to women. If there is a lack of seniority, it must therefore be due to a bias in promotions.

...and you're doing precisely what I described, saying its all ok because (?) men win? women don't want that career? we assume promotions are fair (citation!) because, again, men always win and (?)

You've attempted to claim my position as one that states that

1.) population outcomes being different are okay because men win

2.) population outcomes are different because women don't want certain careers

3.) promotions are fair

The problem is that I didn't make any of those points, nor do I believe them.

You can't make the case that our arguments are symmetrical, because they're not. Yours is an assertion, mine is a claim of insufficient evidence to substantiate your claim. The burden of proof is yours. I'm not making the claim that all population outcomes are the result of biology and everything is perfectly fair, you seem to just believe that this is my claim. What I'm actually saying is that I have a problem with an ideological position which assumes in the absence (or sometimes in the presence of) alternative explanations for why populations arrive at different outcomes, there is a tendency to be satisfied with a de facto position stating that outcomes are necessarily due to sociological forces, specifically patriarchy/sexism/racism. I'm saying that this is a totally unjustifiable position to work off of as a baseline. Working backwards from default conclusions, particularly when it comes to things that are as complicated as this, is not an acceptable strategy.

Maybe it is true that few.

Though, I used to interact (online and offline) with quite a few such people. In this case, even bringing a possibility that there may be any biological differences was crossing a taboo.

If you believe that were are both products of innate biology and culture, we are in agreement.