A society of all women vs all men

[Jonathan Assbutt Jr.]

All woman: the society would be much more peaceful, but much less technologically advanced.

All men: the society would be much less peaceful, but much more technologically advanced.

I think women are largely responsible for a civil society and men are largely responsible for technological advancement of society. (historically and presently as far as I can tell)

 

[Jerome Silberman]

I don't think there is any real reason to think women are less intelligent in the higher stratas than men, or suffer from a lack of ingenuity. But, historically they definitely have suffered from a lack of opportunity.

 

[BroncHawk]

I don't think there is any real reason to think women are less intelligent in the higher stratas than men, or suffer from a lack of ingenuity. But, historically they definitely have suffered from a lack of opportunity.

And lack of recognition

 

[Jonathan Assbutt Jr.]

I don't think there is any real reason to think women are less intelligent in the higher stratas than men, or suffer from a lack of ingenuity. But, historically they definitely have suffered from a lack of opportunity.

It doesn't mean they're less intelligent. More women are going into medical schools than men these days, for example.

I was specifically talking about technological advancements.

 

[Jerome Silberman]

It doesn't mean they're less intelligent. More women are going into medical schools than men these days, for example.

I was specifically talking about technological advancements.

I said women are not less intelligent or lacking ingenuity. I can't grasp how if those two things are correct there would be a significant disparity in advancement. It would probably look different and focus on different areas, but that doesn't mean there wouldn't be comparable advancement overall. There have been women involved in the engineering at NASA nearly every step of the way, and that's just as good as any place to call the cutting edge

 

[Jonathan Assbutt Jr.]

I said women are not less intelligent or lacking ingenuity. I can't grasp how if those two things are correct there would be a significant disparity in advancement. It would probably look different and focus on different areas, but that doesn't mean there wouldn't be comparable advancement overall. There have been women involved in the engineering at NASA nearly every step of the way, and that's just as good as any place to call the cutting edge

Eh?

The obvious implication in my posting is that there are psychological differences between the sexes that affect these outcomes.

Not in intelligence, but in interest and behavior.

(may be some aptitude differences on average in specific areas of cognition... but that isn't the whole picture)

 

[Jerome Silberman]

Eh?

The obvious implication in my posting is that there are psychological differences between the sexes that affect these outcomes.

Not in intelligence, but in interest and behavior.

(may be some aptitude differences on average in specific areas of cognition... but that isn't the whole picture)

It's not as obvious as you think, and I told you why I have the opinion I do but can try again.

Given that very recently in the history of humanity women already have been heavily involved and influential in advanced technological fields while prior to the last 70ish years most of the opportunities to be in positions to develop technology were largely forbidden, I do not see any reason to assume that on a long enough timeline technology wouldn't advancement at a relatively similar pace. Especially if the exact people that have denied them the opportunities en mass were removed.

 

[Jonathan Assbutt Jr.]

It's not as obvious as you think, and I told you why I have the opinion I do but can try again.

Given that very recently in the history of humanity women already have been heavily involved and influential in advanced technological fields while prior to the last 70ish years most of the opportunities to be in positions to develop technology were largely forbidden, I do not see any reason to assume that on a long enough timeline technology wouldn't advancement at a relatively similar pace. Especially if the exact people that have denied them the opportunities en mass were removed.

I understand your point, but I don't see it.

But then why are they way ahead and even outnumbering men in fields that were once forbidden to them -- like medicine.

55 percent of doctor grads are women today. (the numbers become much more lopsided towards women in other areas of medicine)

Around 20 percent of electrical engineer grads are women, for example.

Seems like interest.

 

[Jerome Silberman]

I understand your point, but I don't see it.

But then why are they way ahead and even outnumbering men in fields that were once forbidden to them -- like medicine.

55 percent of doctor grads are women today. (the numbers become much more lopsided towards women in other areas of medicine)

Around 20 percent of electrical engineer grads are women, for example.

Seems like interest.

That's okay.

What is it "that you don't see"?

 

[Rifler]

... would both be very short lived.

 

[Yellowsnow51]

Been done

 

[WDDT]

It's not as obvious as you think, and I told you why I have the opinion I do but can try again.

Given that very recently in the history of humanity women already have been heavily involved and influential in advanced technological fields while prior to the last 70ish years most of the opportunities to be in positions to develop technology were largely forbidden, I do not see any reason to assume that on a long enough timeline technology wouldn't advancement at a relatively similar pace. Especially if the exact people that have denied them the opportunities en mass were removed.

Counter point:


Among lesbian couples, heterosexual couples, and gay male couples, lesbian couples consistently show the highest rates of both divorce and intimate partner violence (IPV/domestic violence). Lesbian (female same-sex) marriages have the highest divorce rates across countries like the UK, Sweden, Netherlands, and the US, often 2–2.5 times higher than gay male couples, with heterosexual couples falling in the middle. For example, Swedish data shows around 40% of female same-sex marriages ending in divorce versus ~30% for male same-sex and heterosexual marriages. In intimate partner violence, lifetime prevalence is also highest among lesbian women (~44%), exceeding heterosexual women (~35%), while gay men report the lowest rates (~26%). Most violence reported by lesbians comes from female partners, mirroring the gender pattern seen in relationship dissolution. These patterns hold in large government surveys (e.g., CDC NISVS) and administrative data, though caveats include reporting biases, relationship duration, and the relative recency of same-sex marriage tracking. Overall, the ranking is consistent: lesbian couples > heterosexual couples > gay male couples for both outcomes.

 

[SeventhSon]

What makes you think the women would be peaceful? Nobody hates women more than other women.
Also, most fights between men that I have seen had something to do with a woman. Just sayin'.

 

[Hawkedup]

I’m not sure about technological advances but an all women society would be way more catty and back stabbing. That’s for damn sure.

 

[Hawkedup]

What makes you think the women would be peaceful? Nobody hates women more than other women.
Also, most fights between men that I have seen had something to do with a woman. Just sayin'.

There is a 0% chance that an all women society would be peaceful. None.

 

[WDDT]

Been done

I dont have 5 hours to watch that but the AI overview says the females started with a predestined camp site and the men were dropped in the ocean and expected to start by swimming to shore.... is that true? Cuz thats absolutely ******** if they think thats comparable.

 

[r_desihawk]

There is a 0% chance that an all women society would be peaceful. None.

but they would small scale fights not wars and for relatively trivial (per males) reasons. an all male society i think guarantees scorched earth campaigns for...i was about to type important strategic reasons but it dawns on me that the reasons are equally likely to be dumb dumber and the dumbest of ****

 

[Rifler]

 

[Jerome Silberman]

but they would small scale fights not wars and for relatively trivial (per males) reasons. an all male society i think guarantees scorched earth campaigns for...i was about to type important strategic reasons but it dawns on me that the reasons are equally likely to be dumb dumber and the dumbest of ****

Dumb like how the poster you're responding to chose to ignore the qualifier "more"?

Edit to add: It looks like there is more than one person here that won't/can't grasp greater than and less than. I wonder if that's a sign of a stunted intellect?

 

[SeventhSon]

Dumb like how the poster you're responding to chose to ignore the qualifier "more"?

Edit to add: It looks like there is more than one person here that won't/can't grasp greater than and less than. I wonder if that's a sign of a stunted intellect?

The qualifier was actually "much more" and I still am skeptical of the premise.

I voted "Dunno", btw.

 

[Jerome Silberman]

The qualifier was actually "much more" and I still am skeptical of the premise.

I voted "Dunno", btw.

Thanks. Best just to ignore it all together.

 

[Jonathan Assbutt Jr.]

That's okay.

What is it "that you don't see"?

Moreso that I just don't agree with your take. That the difference is related (mainly) to historic (and possibly) present discrimination. (and will naturally correct with time)

Women were outsiders in most professions for a long long time -- it wasn't the norm or women to work, especially in professional capacity.

But that's all changed, obviously. Women are graduating college in much greater number and are graduating with more professional degrees than men.

They've become rather dominant in some fields. But they pick certain fields over others, presumably based on interest.

They're not picking professions (nearly as often) in the hard sciences or engineering or the like. A good rule of thumb is that the further away from humans and living things in general your work takes you, the more likely you are to be male.

As a society becomes more egalitarian -- people free to do as they wish -- any innate differences in the sexes will be clarified. If across all egalitarian societies you see a clear and persistent pattern emerging in occupation choice as it relates to the sexes, that would tend to say something.

Additionally... if someone is mechanically or technically inclined -- the people that do really well in these professions -- it's expressed early in life via simple interests. Tearing apart motors or programming something, for example. They don't have to be guided this direction -- they do it because it's innately interesting.

 

[Jerome Silberman]

Moreso that I just don't agree with your take. That the difference is related (mainly) to historic (and possibly) present discrimination. (and will naturally correct with time)

Women were outsiders in most professions for a long long time -- it wasn't the norm or women to work, especially in professional capacity.

But that's all changed, obviously. Women are graduating college in much greater number and are graduating with more professional degrees than men.

They've become rather dominant in some fields. But they pick certain fields over others, presumably based on interest.

They're not picking professions (nearly as often) in the hard sciences or engineering or the like. A good rule of thumb is that the further away from humans and living things in general your work takes you, the more likely you are to be male.

As a society becomes more egalitarian -- people free to do as they wish -- any innate differences in the sexes will be clarified. If across all egalitarian societies you see a clear and persistent pattern emerging in occupation choice as it relates to the sexes, that would tend to say something.

Additionally... if someone is mechanically or technically inclined -- the people that do really well in these professions -- it's expressed early in life via simple interests. Tearing apart motors or programming something, for example. They don't have to be guided this direction -- they do it because it's innately interesting.

Cool! Thanks for the response.

One thing I'd point out is that in your thought experiment, the other sex isn't there and a vacuum exists. Vacuums get filled. I also think it's important to restate that if the entirety of human history were compressed to a year, women(en masse) have had the ability to join the workforce for about the last 45 minutes of December 30th.

The University of Iowa made history in 1855 by becoming the first coed public university. That seems like a long time ago in a single lifetime, but is nothing when considering that technology has been advancing for millions of years among pre-homo sapians and 300,000 years as a species.

 

[Jonathan Assbutt Jr.]

What makes you think the women would be peaceful? Nobody hates women more than other women.
Also, most fights between men that I have seen had something to do with a woman. Just sayin'.

Their aggression doesn't usually spill over into physical conflict. I really doubt a society of women would go to war, commit genocide etc, nearly as often as men.

 

[Jonathan Assbutt Jr.]

I talked about interest. The research:

The Difference is Large: The gender gap on the People vs. Things interest dimension is one of the largest discovered in individual differences research, with a mean Cohen’s $d$ ranging from $0.93$ to $1.18$ standard deviations.

Interest Dimension / Facet	Standard Deviation Difference (Cohen's d)	Directional Lean
Global Things-People Dimension	0.93 to 1.18	Men toward Things / Women toward People
Engineering Interests	0.83 to $1.21	Strong Male Lean
Social / Care Interests	0.68	Strong Female Lean
Artistic Interests	0.35	Moderate Female Lean
Science / Math Interests	0.34 to 0.36	Mild-to-Moderate Male Lean

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/229444851_Gender_Differences_in_Personality_and_Interests_When_Where_and_Why

 

[Jonathan Assbutt Jr.]

Other big factors on why the biggest tech innovators continue to be men:


When moving past the "People vs. Things" interest gap, the disparity in recorded technological innovation between men and women across societies is driven by three main factors:

• The Greater Male Variance Hypothesis: Men exhibit broader statistical dispersion across many cognitive and behavioral traits, resulting in higher representation at both the profound negative and extreme positive tails of specific distributions.
• Risk-Taking and Competition Phenotypes: Higher baseline levels of traits like status-seeking competition, physical or financial risk tolerance, and persistence through institutional rejections drive a higher volume of speculative, high-reward inventive attempts.
• Historical and Institutional Asymmetries: Structural barriers, spanning from centuries of historical property/legal exclusions to modern disparities in intellectual property (IP) commercialization networks, create a "leaky pipeline" for scaling innovations.
  
  

  1. The Greater Male Variance Hypothesis ($40\%$ weight in analysis)​

  In psychometrics, men frequently show a larger standard deviation than women on specific cognitive batteries, even when the average scores are identical. This means that while the mean is the same, the male bell curve is flatter and wider.
  • The Tail Effect: Because technological innovation typically requires an extreme outlier profile (e.g., scoring in the top 0.1% of spatial visualization, mathematical abstraction, or hyper-focused systemizing), a wider standard deviation naturally places more men at that extreme positive tail.
  • The Trade-off: This same variance explains why men are also heavily overrepresented at the negative tail of the distribution (e.g., learning disabilities, developmental disorders, and lower life expectancy).

• 2. Risk-Taking, Status Competition, and Rejection Persistence ($35\%$ weight)​

  Innovation is inherently a high-failure, high-stakes game. Behavioral economics and evolutionary biology identify distinct phenotypic trends in how genders approach speculative ventures:
  • The Risk/Status Axis: Across diverse cultures, men exhibit higher average leanings toward physical, financial, and occupational risk-taking. This behavior is strongly linked to evolutionary status-seeking mechanisms, where securing high-status breakthroughs yields significant reproductive and social capital.
  • The Patent Attrition Gap: Modern data from patent offices indicates a notable behavioral divergence when facing failure. Research tracking millions of applications shows that women are significantly more likely to abandon a patent application after receiving an initial rejection from an examiner. This gap in persistence through bureaucratic resistance accounts for nearly half of the modern gender disparity in granted patents, independent of the invention's quality.

• 3. Institutional Asymmetries and Legal History ($25\%$ weight)​

  Historically and globally, formal innovation tracking (patents, corporate ownership, venture capital funding) requires access to legal systems and capital markets from which women were explicitly blocked for centuries.
  • Historical Lag: For the vast majority of human history across agricultural and industrial societies, married women could not legally own property, sign binding contracts, or retain independent wealth. The entire infrastructure of modern technological scaling (foundries, laboratory networks, investment pools) was built within this exclusive framework.
  • The "Unconventional Invention" Paradox: Recent data published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS) reveals that even today, an invisible institutional barrier remains. While women patent conventional, iterative inventions at rates matching their presence in the workforce, they face a steep decline in successful patent grants when attempting unconventional innovations (inventions that combine disparate concepts in highly novel ways). This is largely driven by institutional review assignments and network-scaling biases rather than deliberate individual prejudice.

 

[Jonathan Assbutt Jr.]

And so you get people like Elon Musk or Bill Gates or the like that become titans in tech.

A) High aptitude for it
B) High interest for it
C) Abnormal psychology -- many of these guys are on the spectrum... social idiots, but smart and profoundly interested/talented where abilities for something like tech is concerned.
D) Hyper competitive. Risk taking maniacs.

You find much more of this on the male side of things than the female side of things psychologically.

Therefor you're probably going to keep seeing major innovation in tech as a male dominated activity.