Over at the excellent FairerScience blog, Rosa points out that scientific studies that emphasize gender differences tend to get more attention than those that explore similarities.
Rosa writes:
If the results of two quick searches on Google are any indication, there’s a lot more interest in sex differences (”about 1,030,000 for “sex differences” “) than in similarities (”about 10,700 for “sex similarities”.”) . . .
We look for differences to help us define how we think about who we are, as individuals and as members of a group. For this reason, studies, articles, and statements that highlight differences are appealing and interesting. When these resources reinforce things we already think about the world and about sex differences, it can be even more satisfying: “See? I knew men and women were different!”
Yes, we do know that men and women are different in many ways, but we also know that men and women are similar in many ways as well. It’s easy to forget, amidst the exciting talk of difference, that just because it gets more play doesn’t mean it’s the only game in town.
Anecdotally, I’ve noticed the same trend in the kinds of studies that get media attention. Many of us are trained to explain gender as a “battle of the sexes.” Plus, clashes make for more interesting stories than agreements. Of course, it’s important to emphasize how women are different from men sometimes. Many medical studies conducted in the twentieth century used male subjects and assumed women would respond to drugs and treatments in exactly the same way men would. Obviously, this was absurd and simply led to ignorance of female biology.
Read Rosa’s post.
Yeah, this drives me nuts. A study which reports “on average, men are .00001% more likely than women to have X mental trait” becomes a big deal in the media, despite being essentially meaningless.
Then they go and make airbags which kill short women because they’re calibrated for very large men who don’t wear seatbelts.