In many cases, this trend could be the result of a simple sampling error. A recent study on chess grandmasters illustrated this point quite nicely. Only 1% of chess grandmasters, and you could argue that this is because there are more men who are extre…

Women have been dying because people are too afraid to see that men and women are REALLY different. Medications meant to be used by women were often tested on men; this is beginning to change but not quickly enough. The very real differences between men and women such as the fact that heart attack symptoms in a female are different than those in a male are very difficult for most people to investigate and discuss without feeling that to do so is being bigoted … it is almost as difficult as the equally real differences between races such that certain illness manifest differently and certain treatment have different results. Until we really let go of all our prejudices, it is not a neutral discussion. I remember looking for a patient I had not yet met and asking a co-worker what he looked like and he described him simply as being “a pleasing color” rather than tall, lanky with very dark skin, large dark eyes and black straight hair … he could not get past “very dark skin” and so, in effect, said the equivalent of nothing.

I believe that there are possibly real constitutional differences that may favor men in the playing of chess: It is quite possible that men do better at chess because the male brain may be better at spatial relationships since it was the male who had to come home from the hunt without a map … remember, no street signs! Perhaps, this is the real reason men are still embarrassed to ask for directions. It may just be about survival and evolution which, as you know, is a very slow process. In chess, you do better to the extent that you can hold AND MANIPULATE visual patterns in your head. This is not an issue of intelligence. Women still are better with verbal skills.

Phil — at the point that “men and women are different” stops being used as justification for general exclusion of women from, or prejudice against women in, careers and hobbies that many women actually show an interest in, then it will stop being a loaded and poisonous question. Do you understand that?

Or, hell, when certain people start to act like “men and women are different,” “these differences account for all observed statistical differences in status or compensation in any given field between men and women,” “absolutely nothing should be done to change the status quo,” and “bluntly, wimmenz just ain’t suited for anythin’ but bein’ barefoot, pregnant, an’ in da kitzen makin’ mah SANWICH!” are discrete propositions which must be supported independently, rather than treating the second, third, and often the fourth, as necessarily implied by the first (and conspicuously being interested in the first for this reason only).