judgybitch

In the most astonishing news of the century, researchers at the University of North Texas have discovered that men’s bodies are different from women’s!  I sure hope that was a publicly funded study.  These physical differences mean that almost all men can throw better than almost all women.

The power in an overhand throw — and in a golf swing, a tennis serve or a baseball swing — comes from the separate turning of hips and shoulders. The hips rotate forward and the body opens, and then the shoulders snap around. Women tend to rotate their hips and shoulders together, and even expert women throwers don’t get the differential that men get. “The one-piece rotation is the biggest difference,” says Thomas. “It keeps women from creating speed at the hand.” Even when women learn to rotate hips and shoulders separately, they don’t do it as fast as men.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/national/health-science/throw-like-a-girl-with-some-practice-you-can-do-better/2012/09/10/9ffc8bc8-dc09-11e1-9974-5c975ae4810f_story_1.html

Well, that’s complete bullshit, obviously, and there is no way ladies are going to admit that men are better than women, ever, under any circumstances.  Declaring that women are better than men?  Oh, that’s fine.  That’s called delusions of supremacy equality.

Let’s take a look at rah-rah you go gurl Cosmopolitan’s list of all the ways that men suck, shall we?

http://www.cosmopolitan.com/advice/tips/women-better-than-men-things#slide-1

1.  Women learn better than men

Especially really hard subjects like calculus and nuclear physics and writing programming languages that use C-like syntax and keywords to add interactivity to webpages.  One day men will be able to grasp these subjects and the entire STEM universe won’t be so dominated by women.

Oh, wait.

http://www.forbes.com/sites/work-in-progress/2012/06/20/stem-fields-and-the-gender-gap-where-are-the-women/

My bad.  Okay.  Aside from actual subjects that require real skills and knowledge, women learn better than men.  What does “learn” mean in this case?  Let’s keep in mind that boys get higher marks on standardized tests, but receive lower grades from teachers.

Why do girls get better grades in elementary school than boys, even when they perform worse on standardized tests?

http://psychcentral.com/news/2013/01/05/why-girls-do-better-in-school/50050.html

What we mean by “learn” in this proclamation of superiority is that girls are better able to meet the environmental conditions set by mostly male female teachers.

The researchers say that “approaches to learning” is a rough measure of what a child’s attitude toward school is. It includes six items that rate the child’s attentiveness, task persistence, eagerness to learn, learning independence, flexibility and organization.

When it comes to testing knowledge via standardized tests, boys kick little girl’s asses, but when it comes to sucking up to teacher, girls rule.  Excellent.  And what do girls parlay that advantage in to? Oh right.  Secretarial work. Good job ladies!

http://money.cnn.com/2013/01/31/news/economy/secretary-women-jobs/index.html

So basically girls have mastered the alphabet, how to tell time, the days of the week, the months of the year and the QWERTY keyboard.  Outstanding accomplishments! Good thing we’ve rigged the entire educational system to play to girls strengths.  What ever would we do without someone to fetch coffee and press “print”?

2.  Women are smarter than men

Yeah, no.  In a spectacular misinterpretation of James Flynn’s analysis of gender and IQ, Cosmo claims that women have higher IQs than men.

Flynn looked at IQ scores from ages 14-18 and found 5 modern states where he could get standardization samples with at least 500 people of each gender. The states he looked at were Australia, New Zealand, White South Africa, Estonia, and Argentina. It was important that he used standardization samples, because that means that the IQ researchers made an effort to get as representative a sample as possible.

Analyzing those 5 datasets and throwing away all of the older studies from the prior generation (prior to 1982), he compared men and women on the Raven’s Progressive Matrices test, a test of abstract, logical reasoning. Setting the male score at 100, Flynn found that women scored the lowest in Australia (99.5), but in the other 4 nations Raven’s scores varied from 100.5 to 101.5.

http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/beautiful-minds/201207/men-women-and-iq-setting-the-record-straight

See that part about setting the male score at 100?  That means women have, at best, reached parity with men in terms of raw scores.  And what Cosmo conveniently ignores is the standard deviation.  Most women cluster around average.  Out in the far right tail, where genius lives, men outnumber women by a factor as high as 8:1.

http://www.iqcomparisonsite.com/sexdifferences.aspx

So no, cupcakes, women are not smarter than men.  At best, they’re equal, in terms of raw scores but not equal in ability. Flynn notes that if you try to intentionally create a gender neutral IQ test by throwing out items that favor one gender over the other, you find that you can’t eliminate a female verbal advantage and a male advantage for visual spatial items.

And if you want to look at the population of individuals with IQ scores over 140, women are not even in the ballpark.  Which is probably a good thing, because girls can’t throw anyways.

3. Women are cleaner than men

Hahahahahah!  Guess the ladies have a little more time to take a break from the strenuous task of organizing a calendar to wipe down their desks with hand sanitizer.  Prissy little things.

But seriously, men have 10-20% more bacteria on their work surfaces than women.  Could that be because men are 10-20% bigger than women?  Just a thought.

And why should we worry about all these icky germs?  Are they going to cause the next biblical plague?

Nope.  They’re perfectly normal.

“You shouldn’t be worried in your own office — it’s you; it’s just a reflection of who you are,” said study researcher Scott Kelley, an associate professor of biology at San Diego State University, referring to the bacteria you find on your typical desk or keyboard. These bacteria are “with us all the time, and they don’t make us sick,” he said.

http://www.livescience.com/36411-bacteria-offices-desk.html

So basically, women are better than men at fussing over pointless shit that won’t hurt you anyways?  Oh, okay.  Well, we can give the ladies that one, no?

4.  Women interview better than men

Now this study is actually very, very interesting.

That anxiety you have about interviewing for your next job may not be such a bad thing after all.  That is the finding of new research by three University of Western Ontario researchers who looked at how men and women handled the stresses of job interviews. Their findings showed that women, although typically more stressed about interviewing, performed better than their male counterparts in interviews thanks in large part to the way in which they coped with stress.

Women performed better in interviews than men, meaning that interviews are actually a pretty poor indicator of good job fit.  The take away from the research is that businesses end up making poor hiring decisions if they use anxiety as a measure of future performance.

You will actually end up making poor hiring decisions as a result of anxiety.

http://www.livescience.com/18495-interview-anxiety-differences.html

Look at what the researchers are saying.  If you hire the person demonstrating the LEAST amount of anxiety, you just might be making a poor hiring decision. In other words, if you hire the woman because she appears calmer, you might be missing out on the best employee.

The man.

So yeah, maybe women interview better than men, but the problem for business is that they don’t make the best employees.   The rationale for the research was to make sure employers aren’t missing out on the best candidates based on superficial appearances.

No much triumph in talking the talk if you can’t walk the walk, now is there?

5.  Women evolve hotter than men

That doesn’t make women better than men, it makes them more fit to compete FOR men.  Not with them.  For them.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/howaboutthat/5912250/Women-getting-more-beautiful-say-scientists.html

6.  Women survive car accidents more often than men do

And that makes you better?  .

“Men take more risks behind the wheel than women, and so men are more likely to get into serious crashes,” says Anne McCartt. “We don’t have any way of comparing their driving abilities, but on the likelihood of getting into a serious crash in which someone dies, men win handily.”

http://editorial.autos.msn.com/article.aspx?cp-documentid=788126

The fact that men are more willing to engage in risky undertakings is why we exist in a world filled with unparalleled luxuries. It’s why we have antibiotics and automatic braking systems and pictures of our planet taken from space.

That comes with a price.  It’s rather ignorant to gloat over the bodies of men who have given you every extravagance because they have been willing to strive.  Women are inherently more cautious than men, and that’s fine.  It’s one of our key differences from men, but it doesn’t make us better.  It makes us different.

http://www.nber.org/papers/w14713

7.  Women are better at seeking comfort than men

A Mind survey of 2,000 people revealed that women are far more likely than men to talk through their problems. Fifty-three percent of women talk to their friends about what’s stressing them out, as opposed to 29 percent of men.

I’m not sure if the writer knows what the word “comfort” means.  She appears to have it confused with “talking”.  Another case of women deciding that they alone get to define what the appropriate strategy is for dealing with stress.  Ladies talk to friends, therefore the only acceptable way to deal with problems is to talk to friends.

Except that is not how most men deal with stress.  The number one thing men do to cope with stress is isolate themselves and consider how to solve the problems.  They seek solutions.  They don’t want to chatter away over cappuccino.  They want to know what they can do about the problem.

http://socialmedialovestory.com/387/how-men-and-women-cope-with-stress-differently-dr-john-gray/

8.  Women are more recession proof than men

According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, 80 percent of those who have lost their jobs since December 2007 have been men.

Nice.  That doesn’t make you better, it just means you have better job protections.  Given that so many women are employed by the government, it’s not surprising they have managed to hang on to their jobs.

http://www.tbs-sct.gc.ca/res/stats/demo11-eng.asp

We’ll see how long that lasts.  The money doesn’t grow on trees, ladies.  Those unemployed men paid taxes, and without those taxes, you have no job.  Don’t get too gleeful just yet. In the UK, men pay 60% of all the taxes remitted.  Destroy their jobs, and you destroy your own.

http://fullfact.org/factchecks/women_men_gender_gap_income_tax-28758

9.  Women graduate from college more often than men do.

Yeah, with degrees in what, exactly?  Oh, the humanities.  Excellent.  How that’s doctorate in a STEM field going?

Oh dear.  Looks like it’s men who earn the most valuable college degrees and achieve the highest designations.  Don’t worry though.  There are plenty of Starbucks to go around.  Barista of Arts, summa cum latte.

10.  Women eat healthier than men

Again, the writer appears to have confused “healthy” with “vegetables”.  Men eat red meat and bacon?  Get outta here!

http://freetheanimal.com/

Based on national obesity rates, it doesn’t look like a whole lot of women are choosing “healthy” foods.  Women are better than men at being fat, apparently.  Congratulations.

http://www.voxeu.org/article/should-government-intervene-reduce-obesity

11.  Women have stronger immune systems than men

No wonder men act like such babies when they have a sniffle — women really do have stronger immune systems than men! If there are little battles going on in our bodies, women have a secret weapon: estrogen. A study done by McGill University indicated that estrogen gives women an edge when it comes to fighting off infections. That’s because estrogen confronts a certain enzyme that often hinders the body’s first line of defense against bacteria and viruses.

Okay, here’s my pet theory about “man sick”.  Thanks to menstruation, pregnancy, childbirth, breastfeeding and childcare, women have evolved to pretty much ignore small physical discomforts.  They’re such a common feature of our lives, that our brains literally do not register any pain until it gets very severe.  And since we are primarily engaged in low-risk tasks, there is no reason for our brain to respond to a few little aches and pains.

Men, on the other hand, are typically involved in physically strenuous tasks that involve risk-taking and teamwork.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2335104/Is-muck-sweat-key-male-teamwork-Chemical-produced-men-perspire-linked-willingness-cooperate.html

Whether a man is hunting a woolly mammoth or helping his neighbor clean the gutters, there is a risk to failure.  A man who is injured,  even in a small way, endangers the whole team and project.  Men have evolved to respond to pain immediately, because if a man is weakened, the whole team is weakened.

Makes sense to me.  I’m very compassionate to men who have colds.  They really do feel it more than women do.  Again, that doesn’t make one of us better than the other.  It makes us different.

12.  Women live longer than men

Oh please.  We leave all the stressful, shitty, dangerous, demanding jobs to men.  No kidding we live longer.  That’s called being pampered.  The more women that take on stressful work, the smaller that gap will be.  We don’t live longer because we’re better than men.  We live longer because we let men do the dirty work.

http://www.economist.com/news/science-and-technology/21569362-rich-world-men-are-closing-longevity-gap-women-catching-up

13.  Women are better managers than men

“Women are community builders and consensus builders, which is important,” he explains. “So we have what I call the feminization of management.”

http://www.nydailynews.com/life-style/better-boss-men-women-experts-females-tops-today-economy-article-1.431291

We’ve covered this before, but it’s worth saying again.  Women are better at managing to avoid responsibility and they resist making really tough decisions.

http://judgybitch.com/2013/03/31/bitches-be-mean-ladies-be-crying-lets-give-them-more-responsibility-clearly-they-can-handle-it/

It’s all fine and well until your business hits a rough patch, and then you find the ladies boo-hooing their way out of having to make a call.  Fair weather managers may be nice to work with, but they won’t help you when the storm hits.

14.  Women make more on their investments than men

Annnnnd we’re right back at risk aversion.  Women don’t take risks.  They won’t fund that new biotech IPO.  They won’t ruck up seed money for a mining exploration.  They won’t put their money on the table for the next great leap forward in technology.

No way.

Women’s money funds the established, tried and true companies.  Men’s money funds the innovators, the risk-takers, the geniuses, the future.

http://www.jstor.org/discover/10.2307/4480862?uid=3739448&uid=2&uid=3737720&uid=4&sid=21102329700701

Women’s money calms the waters.  Men’s money takes us to the stars.

I’d say we need both.

So, in summary, we have found the material facts to be that women are better at men when it comes to fussing over germs that won’t hurt you, and better at being fat.

Well.

I think that deserves a round of applause, no?  Or a round of tequila shooters.  I’m so over this women are better, men are better blah blah blah.

We’re different.   And equal.  That does not mean identical.  Trying to measure women against men as interchangeable carbon copies of one another is not just irritating, it’s stupid.  Women will always lose.  And if we measured a man’s worth in terms of his ability to breastfeed and successfully gestate a baby, he would lose.  Notice that most men don’t go around thinking up ways to pretend they are “better” than women.

Cosmo, get over yourself.  And learn to throw a ball for Christ’s sake. It’s not that hard.

You know, if you’re a man.

Lots of love,

JB

Tags: bullshit surveys, Cosmopolitan’s, Let's get out the tequila!, SEcretaries do it better, women better than men, you throw like a girl