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| Two men after trying to kill each other |
Writing in "Men May Have Evolved Better 'Making up' Skills," Matt McGrath says that recent research on how men treat other men against whom they have been competing in a sporting event compared with how women behave suggest that men are more forgiving of the same sex than are women, which the authors suggest is evidence of evolutionary differences which explain why men are more successful than women not only in business, but also in religion, war and politics (2016).
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| Two women after a fame of tennis |
Are women more forgiving than men?
My answer is:
No, at least not in competition with other women, which surprises me.
When I saw the headline for this article in the BBC News, it was just after I'd argued that religions are morally bad in their prejudiced treatment of women, and this story seemed relevant to the same sexism issues, which is the reason I decided to read it. The photograph of the forgiving boxers after their brutal game also caught my eye.
One week ago, I'm sure my answer would have that women are the more forgiving of their sex, but it appears I was wrong. McGrath tells his information well, so I didn't feel any need to also read the journal paper he is reporting on, although it is interesting, so I did have a look at it in the journal Current Biology.
In my previous blog post, I said that the Christian, Buddhist and other religions are immoral because they treat women unequally because they are women and for no good reason. But it appears that there really are natural differences between men and women that might be relevant. However, this raises, for me, the interesting question of how we should react if science tells us that there are real differences between men and women. The facts reported suggest that not only are there physical differences, which are obvious since men tend not to have babies, while women tend not to be the fastest or strongest athletes at the Olympics and elsewhere, but also that there are real behavioural and psychological differences naturally programmed into men and women. And that makes me wonder whether there might be similar natural, genetically determined differences in things like intelligence and personality between different human races.
I was also reminded of the earliest story in Western civilisation, the epic that is Homer's Iliad, which recounts the battles and eventual humanization with the help of the Trogan King Priam of the bold Achilles. The women in this long story of violent fighting, warring, rape and other natural pursuits of human males (and women? Are they as naturally wicked as men?) do seem the more determined not to forgive or be gentle with other women, especially the goddesses, who are at least as deadly in their hatred as the male gods of Greek religion. Once again, we see the the Greeks got things more right than their Middle Eastern neighbours who gave us Judaism, Christianity and Islam. The Olympic gods are a much more human mob.
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Reference
McGrath, M. (2016, August 4). Men may have evolved better 'making up' skills. BBC News. Retrieved from http://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-36969103
I prone to believe from the findings that men tend to be more forgiving than women. I am not an advocate against women and I try not to have a prejudice on gender. But from my own experience, men tend to look at things in a macro view. Many of them focus on end result and when some mistakes happened along the way, they tend to rather concentrate on solving the problems instead of creating a friction of false finding or being strictly focus on the minor details. To me this is not anyone's fault. I would say it is probably due to the biological factor-the hormone factors.
ReplyDeleteI sometimes think we are too much indulged in the idea of sexism. I do believe that both genders have their own different strengths and weaknesses. They all good but in a different things/ways.
Thanks Kitt. I would want the solid evidence that supports the idea that men are better at macro views. The research reported in the article I blogged was very narrow, and the author was suitably cautious.
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ReplyDeleteIn women’s forebrain in parts of the frontal lobe, which responsible for thought were larger than men, and it connected with the limbic cortex,which responsible for regulating emotions so women usually think a lot and take any factors into consideration moreover,women generally avoid conflict or confrontation while men tent to be more aggressive and show their emotion directly so I think they can dissolving negative emotions and forgive easier than women.
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