Sex Differences Quotes

My stress on the truth in sexual stereotypes and on the biologic basis of sex differences is sure to cause controversy. ~ Camille Paglia

The tape measures and weighing scales of the Victorian brain scientists have been supplanted by powerful neuroimaging technologies, but there is still a lesson to be learned from historical examples such as these. State-of-the-art brain scanners offer us unprecedented information about the structure and working of the brain. But don't forget that, once, wrapping a tape measure around the head was considered modern and sophisticated, and it's important not to fall into the same old traps. As we'll see in later chapters, although certain popular commentators make it seem effortlessly easy, the sheer complexity of the brain makes interpreting and understanding the meaning of any sex differences we find in the brain a very difficult task. But the first, and perhaps surprising, issue in sex differences research is that of knowing which differences are real and which, like the intially promising cephalic index, are flukes or spurious. ~ Cordelia Fine

The sex difference in Agreeableness puts the debate about sex discrimination in society into an interesting light. The media tends to decry the fact that the prevalence of women chief executives of large corporations is very much lower than 50 per cent. But is this really evidence that discrimination is operating? It could equally well be the case that there is no discrimination, but that fewer women want to emphasize status gain at the expense of social connectedness. Given the known relationships between Agreeableness and career success, and the known sex differences in Agreeableness, you could actually work out the expected number of women in top positions if the market is blind to sex. It would not be zero, but it would be not be 50 per cent either. ~ Daniel Nettle

One question on hospital admittance forms really gets me. "Sex: Male or Female?" Do I want to be in a hospital where they can't tell the difference? ~ Ronnie Shakes

I do not deny certain kinds of biological differences. But I always ask under what conditions, under what discursive and institutional conditions, do certain biological differences - and they're not necessary ones, given the anomalous state of bodies in the world - become the salient characteristics of sex. ~ Judith Butler

No science is ever frightening to Christians. Religious people don't need the science to come out any particular way on IQ or AIDS or sex differences any more than they need the science to come out any particular way on evolution ... If evolution is true, then God created evolution. ~ Ann Coulter

Mr. Darwin ... has failed to hold definitely before his mind the principle that the difference of sex, whatever it may consist in, must itself be subject to natural selection and to evolution. ~ Antoinette Brown Blackwell

The propositions that accompany most of the chapters . . . are not as snappy as I would prefer - but there's a reason for their caution and caveats. On certain important points, the clamor of genuine scientific dispute has abated and we don't have to argue about them anymore. But to meet that claim requires me to state the propositions precisely. I am prepared to defend all of them as "things we don't have to argue about anymore" - but exactly as I worded them, not as others may paraphrase them.

Here they are:

1. Sex differences in personality are consistent worldwide and tend to widen in more gender-egalitarian cultures.

2. On average, females worldwide have advantages in verbal ability and social cognition while males have advantages in visuospatial abilities and the extremes of mathematical ability.

3. On average, women worldwide are more attracted to vocations centered on people and men to vocations centered on things.

4. Many sex differences in the brain are coordinate with sex differences in personality, abilities, and social behavior.

5. Human populations are genetically distinctive in ways that correspond to self-identified race and ethnicity.

6. Evolutionary selection pressure since humans left Africa has been extensive and mostly local.

7. Continental population differences in variants associated with personality, abilities, and social behavior are common.

8. The share ~ Charles Murray

Even the new feminist research on sex-role socialization and sex differences has sometimes had the unfortunate consequence of creating a new set of stereotypes about what women feel and how women behave. Despite the large amount of overlap between the sexes in most research, the tendency to label and polarize and thus to exaggerate differences remains in much reporting of data, which may, for example, report the mean scores of male and female populations but not the degree of overlap. ~ Rosabeth Moss Kanter

One of the most robust sex differences in personality research is the finding that women are higher in Agreeableness than men are. The difference is over half a standard deviation, which means that although there is plenty of overlap between the sexes, the average man scores lower than 70 per cent of women. Women have an advantage on theory of mind tasks too. Moreover, there is evidence that the difference is deep in our biology. When women are given testosterone experimentally, it reduces empathetic behaviour.19 ~ Daniel Nettle

Boys are suffering, in the modern world. They are more disobedient - negatively - or more independent - positively - than girls, and they suffer for this, throughout their pre-university educational career. They are less agreeable (agreeableness being a personality trait associated with compassion, empathy and avoidance of conflict) and less susceptible to anxiety and depression,172 at least after both sexes hit puberty.173 Boys' interests tilt towards things; girls' interests tilt towards people.174 Strikingly, these differences, strongly influenced by biological factors, are most pronounced in the Scandinavian societies where gender-equality has been pushed hardest: this is the opposite of what would be expected by those who insist, ever more loudly, that gender is a social construct. It isn't. This isn't a debate. The data are in. ~ Jordan B. Peterson

Normative statements about "women's roles" and girls' and women's behaviour being "appropriately feminine" were replaced with more neutral statements about what women and girl versus boys and men do and think and say they want. In this way, conventionally gendered behaviour was taken out of the context of prescription and presented as simple description. This had the possibly unanticipated consequence, though, of taking these behaviours out of the context of the social world. The descriptive approach significantly deemphasised the role of norms, social structures, and modelling in developing gendered traits. Instead, disembodied as "naked facts" of sex differences, they began to look more and more like simple reflections of male and female behaviour. ~ Rebecca M. Jordan-Young

He- for there could be no doubt of his sex, though the fashion of the time did something to disguise it- was in the act of slicing at the head of a Moor which swung from the rafters. ~ Virginia Woolf

Yes, we started out as the Sex Maggots, then became the Goo Goo Dolls, well, and we're still the Goo Goo Dolls! ~ John Rzeznik

Do you think sex will be even dirtier once we're divorced?" Patrick looks up from contemplating the chessboard. "Are you planning on sleeping with me after we're divorced?" Will's ears burn. "Would we have to stop?" Patrick ~ Leta Blake

My own view, for what it's worth, is that sexuality is lovely, there cannot be too much of it, it is self-limiting if it is satisfactory, and satisfaction diminishes tension and clears the mind for attention and learning. ~ Paul Goodman

He's thinking about sex. I'm thinking about sex. We're all thinking about sex here. ~ Krista Ritchie

You have to change musically. Bubble gum pop was good for the first time you have sex. They didn't want to give the OK on some really good music. It was the frustration of being signed to that label. I was depressed. ~ Leif Garrett

When I get up at five in the morning to go fishing, I wake my wife up and ask, 'What'll it be dear, sex or fishing?' And she says, Don't forget your waders.' ~ Robert Ruark

You don't need a sex scene to have romance! My favorite kind of romance is the understated tension of unconfessed (and certainly unconsumated) love. I think it's always more addicting to read about people who I wish would get together than to read about people who already 'been there done that'. ~ R.A. White

We pretend that we know our children, because it's easier than admitting the truth
from the minute that cord is cut, they are strangers. It's far easier to tell yourself your daughter is still a little girl than to see her in a bikini and realize she has the curves of a young woman; it's safer to say you're a good parent who has all the right conversations about drugs and sex than to acknowledge there are a thousand things she would never tell you. ~ Jodi Picoult

If a woman enjoyed sex, or expressed her sexuality outwardly she was automatically a slut with no respect for herself. Sex was a favor you allowed your husband so angels wouldn't curse you until morning. ~ Michael Muhammad Knight

Any actor that's like, 'I hate the fact that I'm getting all of this attention,' is a liar. Especially when it's from the opposite sex. ~ Donald Faison

Not those qualities! she wanted to shout. Why were men so basic? Why did they only ever think about one thing - sex? Well, actually, it was two things. Sex and power. Forget everything else - they seemed to be the only two things that motivated the male species. And normally she didn't even think about sex. So why was it that, since the Sultan's bodyguard had removed his fencing mask and revealed his impossibly handsome face, she'd thought about little else? ~ Sarah Morgan

Strength lies in differences, not in similarities ~ Stephen R. Covey

We want different things. Men want to have sex with a woman. Then they want to have sex with another woman. And then another. Then they want to eat cornflakes and sleep for a while, and then they want to have sex with another woman, and another, until they die. Women,' and I thought I'd better pick my words carefully when describing a gender I didn't belong to, 'want a relationship. They may not get it, or they may sleep with a lot of men before they do get it, but ultimately that's what they want. That's the goal. Men do not have goals. Natural ones. So they invent them, and put them at either end of a football pitch. And then they invent football. Or they pick fights, or try and get rich, or start wars, or come up with any number of daft bloody things to make up for the fact that they have no real goals.'
'Bollocks,' said Ronnie.
'That, of course, is the other main difference. ~ Hugh Laurie

There is a difference between happiness, the supreme good, and the final end or goal toward which our actions ought to tend. For happiness is not the supreme good, but presupposes it, being the contentment or satisfaction of the mind which results from possessing it. ~ Rene Descartes

Ooo-kay," she began slowly. "You want to have sex with me. You want to have sex with a woman to whom you've never spoken more than a few words at a time. Tell me something, Steele, is this one of those situations where any pussy will do? Is it a guy thing, coming off a mission and you'll dip into the first available well you can find?" He looked completely taken aback by her blunt language. Surprised even. Then he seemed to figure out that it was possible he'd just been insulted. "I don't fuck around," he growled. "I'm clean. I use condoms. I haven't had sex in a year." "All righty then," she said, more than a little surprised at his admission. "Maybe a little more than I needed to know." "If you're sleeping with me, you need to know. ~ Maya Banks

Your women of fashion ceases to be a woman. She is neither mother, nor wife, nor lover. She is, medically speaking, sex on the brain. ~ Honore De Balzac

There is no love left in your eyes, there is no love between your thighs. ~ Dave Navarro

Henry Fielding, a highly successful satiric dramatist until the introduction of censorship in 1737, began his novel-writing career with Shamela, a pastiche of Pamela, which humorously attacked the hypocritical morality which that novel displayed. Joseph Andrews (1742) was also intended as a kind of parody of Richardson; but Fielding found that his novels were taking on a moral life of their own, and he developed his own highly personal narrative style - humorous and ironic, with an omniscient narrative presence controlling the lives and destinies of his characters.

Fielding focuses more on male characters and manners than Richardson. In doing so, he creates a new kind of hero in his novels. Joseph Andrews is chaste, while Tom Jones in Tom Jones (1749) is quite the opposite. Tom is the model of the young foundling enjoying his freedom (to travel, to have relationships with women, to enjoy sensual experience) until his true origins are discovered. When he matures, he assumes his social responsibilities and marries the woman he has 'always' loved, who has, of course, like a mediaeval crusader's beloved, been waiting faithfully for him. Both of these heroes are types, representatives of their sex.

There is a picaresque journey from innocence to experience, from freedom to responsibility. It is a rewriting of male roles to suit the society of the time. The hero no longer makes a crusade to the Holy Land, but the crusade is a personal one, with chivalry learne ~ Ronald Carter

Just always be extremely respectful, was something that was drilled into me, which I think probably prevented me from having sex for a good seven years longer than it should have. ~ Seth Rogen

Putting aside all the things that are said about Hillary [Clinton], my main difference with her is on the vision of what kind of society will make people's lives better. So this is a vision of society in which people are too evil or stupid to run their own lives, but those in power are perfectly capable of running everybody else's lives because they're so much smarter. ~ Charles Koch

Let's disagree with each other most enthusiastically - let's annoy each other - let's bite each other's head off - but let's never hate each other and let's always stand together, no matter the differences. ~ Abhijit Naskar

I was vegetarian, trying to eat from fast-food restaurants without meat. I didn't know how to eat properly and I was starving. I was adrenalized to the eyeballs from performing. I was afraid that I was sick with AIDS. We were playing five shows a week. I even went through a period of abstinence where I didn't drink and stopped having sex. Which is crazy. Maybe I'm answering too many questions at once here, but this is where my mind was at the age of 25. ~ Michael Stipe

To a man, sex is the ultimate expression of love. It is pure pleasure. But to a woman there exists something greater than pleasure―gestures of adoration. A gentle caress on the cheek, an attentive smile, a soft kiss while swept away in a slow dance, the whispered words 'You're beautiful'―these are the tokens of love that women cherish. ~ Richelle E. Goodrich

If only mankind could hold its own fertility in awe, which is one and the same whether it manifests itself in the spirit or in the flesh. For creativity in the spirit has its origins in the physical kind, is of one nature with it and only a more delicate, more rapt and less fleeting version of the carnal sort of sex. ~ Rainer Maria Rilke

There was nothing civilized about sex with Eric. ~ Charlaine Harris

Sex is a good starting point for everything. ~ Lauren Groff

Where there is a believing community whose life is centered in the biblical story through its worshipping, teaching, and sacramental and apostolic life, there will certainly be differences of opinion on specific issues, certainly mistakes, certainly false starts. But it is part of my faith in the authenticity of the story itself that this community will not be finally betrayed. ~ Lesslie Newbigin

You know," I saw, leaning across the table and taking her hand. "I could have sex with a thousand women, and it wouldn't feel like it did that night in the orange grove. ~ Tarryn Fisher

Sex is always about emotions. Good sex is about free emotions; bad sex is about blocked emotions. ~ Deepak Chopra

A student undergoing a word association test was asked why a snowstorm put him in mind of sex. He replied frankly: "Because everything does." ~ Honor Tracy

To speak of morals in art is to speak of legislature in sex. Art is the sex of the imagination. ~ George Jean Nathan

There is much to be said for post-menopausal celibacy. Sex is rough on loners because you have to have somebody else around, but now I don't. No more diets to stay slim and desirable: I've had sex and I've had food, and I'd rather eat. ~ Florence King

There's a big difference between wanting to work and having to work. And I had to learn that the hard way. Now money is very important to me, because I ain't got it. ~ James Caan

I believe inter -racial marriages show the world that the color of a person's skin is of no consequence. The more such marriages there are, the more people will come into direct contact with such couples. This benefits peace in the world where so much conflict and hatred is based on racial and religious differences ~ Robert S. Jepson, Jr.

If you can't have frank and honest discussions with your partner about sex, you'd better be damn good with your hands. ~ Stuart Hazleton