I hope he dies / I hope she dies - Topsy analysis

Now that was interesting. The blogger on the Men Matterz blog used Topsy (a site to analyze tweets) to see how common advocating violence towards men were. The results from the last 30 days:

“cut off his dick” – 646 instances
“chopped off his balls” – 102 instances
“chopped off his dick” – 60 instances
“chop off his dick” – 232 instances
“rip his dick off” – 31 instances
“going to kill him” – 374 instances
“I hope he gets raped” – 34 instances
“I want to stab him”- 66 instances

If retweets are taken into consideration, just on these phrases alone which only represent a fraction of the variations out there, the number exceeded well over 4,000 genuinely disturbing comments in just 30 days.

I have no clue how twitter works when it comes to retweets but found this pretty interesting. I asked myself, of course, but what about women, as compared to men. So I used Topsy as well as Google to find some results for phrases that include kill, die and rape. The Results:

                              Topsy (All Time)      Google
----------------------------------------------------------
"I hope he gets raped"         121                 385,000
"I hope she gets raped"         56                 184,000
Gender Ratio (F:M)            0.46                    0.47

"I want to rape him"           241                  99,300
"I want to rape her"            62                 139,000
Gender Ratio (F:M)            0.25                    1.39            

"I hope he dies"              1937               1,790,000
"I hope she dies"             1181                 603,000
Gender Ratio (F:M)            0.60                    0.33            

"I want to kill him"          3642               3,360,000
"I want to kill her"          1915               1,420,000
Gender Ratio (F:M)            0.52                    0.42

"I hope he gets killed"         54                 627,000
"I hope she gets killed"        45                 223,000
Gender Ratio (F:M)            0.83                    0.35

Pretty interesting results. Especially for the rape items where I did not suspect to be more hateful comments against men, on Twitter. The Google result for "I want to rape him/her" is the only item where the female version got more hits. I played around with "rape her / rape him" which is in favor of the female version, however most of the results listed seem to come from news reports so these findings are not surprising and I was looking for people advocating for violence.

The rich husband effect

Found via Genderama. The Reuters link:

It shows that between 1993 and 2006, there was a decline in the workforce of 0.1 percent a year on average in the number of college-educated women, with similarly educated spouses. That contrasts with growth of 2.4 percent a year between 1976 and 1992. The result: the labor force in 2008 had 1.64 million fewer such women than if the growth rate had kept up its earlier trend, slightly more than 1 percent of the total workforce in that year. [...] Albanesi links the decline in the number of well-educated, married women entering the labor force to a sharp rise in salaries for top earners in the United States, and in particular, for men. In 1975, college graduates of both sexes were making 43 percent more than non-college graduates. By 2008, the figure had risen to 92 percent for men and to 70 percent for women. "In the last 20 years, wages for highly educated males increased so much that they dwarfed the family's second income, usually the one of their wives," said Albanesi, who co-authored the study with Columbia University graduate student Maria Prados. "The result was that sometimes married women exited the labor force mid-career, exactly around the time their husbands are promoted to more senior roles. They stopped getting income they didn't need and so they left the labor force forever." [...] But as the economy stabilized in the past two years, there have been signs that the retreat has resumed, Albanesi said. Of all working-age women, 58.6 percent were either working or looking for a job in 2010, down from 59.2 percent in 2009. The Bureau of Labor Statistics expected the rate to fall further by 2020. According to Albanesi, it's not the tug of looking after young children that makes most educated women give up their career. "These women usually give up their jobs when their children are school-age and not babies any more," Albanesi said. Studies by the University of Chicago Booth School of Business and Harvard support that view.[...] But the trend is not limited to top earners. It has been detected among households earning around $80,000 per year.

Female board members take more risk than male board members?!?

Found via this article:

The German central bank's research found that female board members were more likely to take risks with a bank's finances than their male counterparts.

It urges financial institutions to be cautious when re-addressing the gender balance: "Employing a higher proportion of female board members significantly increases risk taking."

[...T]hose women who have scaled the corporate ladder and smashed through the glass ceiling tend to be less experienced than men in a similar position.

In more technical terms as this study is available online:

Executive board composition and bank risk taking - Allen N. Berger, Thomas Kick, Klaus Schaeck - 2012

The socio-economical composition of a company’s executive board is highly relevant for economic and social policy. For example, gender quotas are often advocated to improve career outcomes for females and ‘break the glass ceiling’. Similarly, educational requirements for bank boards have been proposed in the past as a means to improve corporate governance. However, little is known about the effects on firm outcomes of having more female, more educated or older board members. Do female board members really force a less risky conduct of business? Do educated board members increase or reduce bank risk-taking? And does the age of executive board members matter?

We construct a unique dataset for the entire population of German bank executive teams for the period 1994 – 2010. Exploiting this dataset, we examine how the age, gender, and education composition of banks’ executive boards affect bank risk taking. In our first test, we empirically establish that age, gender, and education affect the observed volatility of bank profits. In a second step, we compare banks which experienced changes in board structure to similar banks without such a change. Generally, changes in board structure could be symptoms of underlying trends in a bank’s business model. For example, shareholders might appoint directors with similar views regarding the bank’s optimal strategy. Such underlying trends would confound our analysis, as we would attribute the changes in risk taking to the new board structure. We circumvent this problem by only considering board changes due to the retirement of a board member. This strategy allows us to capture the impact of a younger, more female or more experienced board.

We obtain the following key results. First, we show that younger executive teams increase risk-taking. Second, board changes that result in a higher proportion of female executives also lead to a more risky conduct of business. Third, if board changes increase the representation of executives holding Ph.D. degrees, risk taking declines. This has important policy implications: while quotas regarding the age, gender and education of an executive directly affect the representation of different groups on executive boards, they have a knock-on effect on corporate outcomes.

This should debunk some stereotypes frequently found online.

Cheating revisited

As I am categorizing the posts of my blog in the "Short fact list" (that is far from being a short list) I came across an older article by me about cheating. An older article that mostly consists of opinion pieces. Horrible. So, here we go again, this times with better data:

The first one gives us a good overview.

Sex Differences in Self-reported Infidelity and its Correlates - Rebecca J. Brand & Charlotte M. Markey & Ana Mills & Sara D. Hodges - 2007

One of the most common findings in infidelity research is that males commit more acts of infidelity. These sex differences apply to the prevalence of infidelity (the number of individuals who report having cheated), and although studied less exhaustively, the incidence of infidelity (the number of cheating liaisons in which an individual engages). [...]

When definitions of cheating include non-intercourse behaviors such as kissing or dating, sex differences appear to be attenuated or disappear (Drigotas et al. 1999; Glass and Wright 1985; Wiederman and Hurd 1999). These behaviors, which are sexual or romantic in nature but fall short of intercourse, are still likely damaging to the relationship and certainly violate many people’s
expectations for their relationships. As evidence for this, Drigotas et al. (1999) asked college students if emotional and physical intimacy behaviors, including flirting, sharing feelings, and kissing, constituted infidelity. Most (76%) reported that they did. [...]

In addition, sex differences in infidelity may be changing in recent years. Wiederman (1997) for instance, found that 23% of men and 12% of women had had an extramarital sexual affair. However, when they examined their data separately for participants under the age of 40, the sex differences in infidelity disappear. Allen et al. (2005; see also Oliver and Hyde 1993) reviewed several studies
showing a shrinking sex difference in successively younger cohorts. Therefore, any attempt to understand sex differences in the predictors and consequences of infidelity requires an up-to-date assessment of incidence and prevalence.

In short, cheating has been a different beast in the past and is now getting (more) equal. There is however difference in the perception of emotional and physical cheating which we will analyze in different surveys soon. To continue with the above study.

In fact, in both Study 1 and 2, women appeared to be the more likely sex to report a higher prevalence of infidelity. Our findings seem to indicate that past sex differences reported in this literature may be misleading or outdated. The specific definitions of cheating used in this research and the inclusion of non-intercourse behaviors as cheating behaviors may at least partially account for the finding that women were likely to report infidelity. It is also possible that we are picking up on a cohort effect. The expression of female sexuality is increasingly depicted in popular culture (e.g., television) as appropriate; virginity is not prized as it once was (Buss et al. 2001; Hoyt and Hudson 1981). Thus, women may find themselves feeling free to partake in not
only multiple sexual relationships throughout their lifetime, but perhaps multiple romantic and sexual relationships at the same time, regardless of their current relationship status. [...]

While approximately equal numbers of men and women in our study appear to be cheating, typically, men who were unfaithful cheated many times [...] Women seem more likely to engage in long-term (although adulterous) relationships while men are more likely to engage in one-night stands (Schmitt 2003). Despite this change in measurement tactic, we found that men reported more episodes on average, even though they did not have higher prevalence overall. [...]

Consistent with our hypothesis, women’s relationships were more likely than men’s to break up after their own infidelity. Further [...] we have some evidence [...] that women may be more likely to begin a new relationship with their extra-pair partner than are men. Both of these findings support the idea that women are cheating to mate-switch. [...] Although men and women reported many of the same reasons for cheating (that they were attracted to the extra-pair partner, that they were bored or unhappy in the current relationship), there were also some telling differences. One of men’s top-five responses that did not appear in women’s top-five was that they cheated out of opportunity. This is consistent with the possibility that at least some men are pursuing a strategy of quantity, mating with multiple partners without a lot of regard for quality. On the other hand, women were significantly more likely than men to report cheating because they were unhappy in the current relationship and because they were made to feel attractive by the extra-pair partner. Both of these reasons are consistent with women cheating as a way to find a better, more attentive partner than their current mate.

The conclusion:

Popular culture conceptualizes women as loyal, faithful caretakers of the men in their lives, while men are conceptualized as creatures with uncontrollable urges that force them to “sow their seed.” Past research has also suggested that men are more likely to be unfaithful than women. However, the present findings suggest that this notion may be old-fashioned and outdated. Our findings
suggest that women do not appear to be altogether less likely to be unfaithful than men. [...] Despite equal prevalence of cheating, our findings support the idea that men and women may cheat for different reasons. Men who cheat seem likely to be pursuing a quantity-over-quality strategy; if they select cheating as a strategy, they may do so merely out of opportunity, with many different women.

Women, on the other hand, may be using infidelity to mateswitch; rather than cheating indiscriminately with a large number of men, they may be selective in choosing a better potential long-term mate, specifically one who will make them happier than their current partner and will validate their attractiveness. Thus, while infidelity may have devastating consequences for both men and women in relationships, different measures may be effective in preventing men’s and women’s cheating behaviors and different ramifications may follow men’s versus women’s acts of infidelity

Before we start with the other studies, in retrospect it is interesting to me to see how these all fit together. I will spoil it, to women it seems the emotional connection is more important than the sexual one. So what does the next study tell us:

Sex differences (and similarities) in jealousy The moderating influence of infidelity experience and sexual orientation of the infidelity - Brad J. Sagarina, D. Vaughn Beckerb, Rosanna E. Guadagnob,
Lionel D. Nicastleb, Allison Millevoib - 2003

Thus, ensuring that putative offspring are indeed one’s own is an adaptive challenge for males, whereas a female faces the different challenge of ensuring that the father invests resources into her children rather than those of rivals. These considerations suggest that male and female sexual jealousy will be qualitatively different (Daly, Wilson, & Weghorst, 1982; Symons, 1979).
Accordingly, Buss, Larsen, Westen, and Semmelroth (1992) predicted that men and women would differ in their responses to emotional and sexual infidelity, with women being relatively responsive to the former and men to the latter. Both survey and physiological evidence supported this hypothesis: when asked which type of infidelity would distress them more, men were much more likely than women to select the sexual infidelity, and when subjects were instructed to fantasize about one type of infidelity or the other, measures of electrodermal activity and heart rate supported the conclusion that the sexes differed in the two types of infidelity’s relative emotional impacts.[...]

Male victims of infidelity were significantly more likely than male non-victims to report greater distress in response to a sexual infidelity. Furthermore, in contrast to the typical 40–50% ratio
for men on the forced-choice question, nearly two-thirds of male victims of infidelity indicated that a sexual infidelity would cause greater distress. For women, experience as a victim of infidelity did not serve as a moderator, but experience as a perpetrator did. Women who reported cheating on a past romantic partner were significantly more likely to indicate that a sexual infidelity would cause greater distress compared to women who had not cheated. [...] From this evidence, we suggest that it is inaccurate to view men and women as manifesting a gross, context-free sex difference in jealousy. Our results suggest that when men and women face differential adaptive challenges—when their partners become involved with members of the opposite sex—they display a large, reliable sex difference, but when conception is not a possibility—when their partners become involved with members of the same sex—the differential adaptive challenges disappear, and so do the sex differences.

And finally.

Forgiveness or breakup: Sex differences in responses to a partner’s infidelity - Todd K. Shackelford, David M. Buss, Kevin Bennett - 2002

Although many factors contribute to the complex decision to forgive or break up following a partner’s infidelity, work guided by an evolutionary perspective suggests that the decision may hinge on the nature of the infidelity (e.g., Buss et al., 1992; Daly, Wilson, & Weghorst, 1982; Symons, 1979). Among human ancestors, a single instance of sexual infidelity could jeopardise a man’s certainty in paternity, with the attendant reproductive risk of investing a couple of decades of effort in a rival man’s child rather than his own (see Geary, 2000, for a recent discussion of paternal investment). From an ancestral woman’s perspective, a single sexual infidelity committed by her husband would not have carried this magnitude of risk, since her genetic maternity is not thereby compromised and hence her investments would still have been channelled toward her own genetic children. If her husband became emotionally involved with another woman, on the other hand, such affective infidelity would signal the long-term diversion to that other woman of her husband’s energy, commitments, and investments, and hence would be more reproductively costly.

If these selection pressures recurred over human evolutionary history, selection could have created decision-rules to forgive or break up depending on specific features of context such as the nature of the infidelity and the sex of the person committing the infidelity. [...]

The results of this research support the hypothesis that forgiveness or breakup depends on the sex of the respondent and the nature of the infidelity. Men, relative to women: (a) find it more difficult to forgive a partner’s sexual infidelity than a partner’s emotional infidelity; and (b) are more likely to break up in response to a partner’s sexual infidelity than in response to a partner’s emotional infidelity. Conversely, women, relative to men, find it more difficult to forgive and are more likely to break up with a partner who is emotionally unfaithful. These sex differences remain even after controlling for effects attributable to ethnicity and to age. Over human evolutionary history, both sexes incurred reproductive costs as a result of
a partner’s sexual infidelity and emotional infidelity. These costs are sex-differentiated, however. A partner’s sexual infidelity placed men, but not women, at risk of investing resources in a rival’s offspring. A partner’s sexual infidelity therefore represents a potentially more costly adaptive problem for men than for women. Modern men have psychological mechanisms that are exquisitely sensitive to a partner’s sexual infidelity (Buss et al., 1992; Daly & Wilson, 1988).

Women also are sensitive to a partner’s sexual infidelity, but accumulating evidence suggests that women become more upset in response to a partner’s emotional infidelity, which signals the long-term diversion of a partner’s commitment and investment (Buss et al., 1992; Buunk et al., 1996; DeSteno & Salovey, 1996; Geary et al., 1995; Wiederman & Allgeier, 1993; Wiederman & Kendall,
1999).

Not that is a much better post on cheating.

The differences of DV studies in a few numbers

As seen here:

Between 600,000 and 6 million women are victims of domestic violence each year, and between 100,000 and 6 million men, depending on the type of survey used to obtain the data.
(Rennison, C. (2003, Feb). Intimate partner violence. Us. Dpt. of Justice/Office of Justice Programs. NXJ 197838.
Straus, M. & Gelles, R. (1990). Physical violence in American families. New Brunswick, N.J.: Transaction Publishers.
Tjaden, P., & Thoennes, N. (2000). Extent, nature, and consequences of intimate partner violence. National Institute of Justice, NCJ 181867.)

The surveys with the low incident numbers are likely crime surveys while the surveys with the high numbers are likely family violence surveys. Note the difference in incidence numbers and the difference in gender ratio. Family violence surveys find 10 times as many victims and have a ration of 1:1 while crime surveys have a ratio of 6:1. Both kind of studies measure different things. It is dishonest to use both of the statistics together in a way like this: 6 Million women have been victims of DV this year (family violence survey), while 85% of DV victims are women (crime survey).

That is all.

Son/Daughter Double Standard in Parenting

I do not usually post articles without data / scienc-y stuff, but well, this F&F article is pretty interesting:

[M]others and fathers both parent boys differently than they do girls. In short, girls tend to get more of their parent’s affection, attention and protection while boys tend to be taught to not need same and to “man up.” [...]

It is indeed a double standard and the idea that even boys who are young enough to just be starting school find themselves holding the short end of the maternal affection stick should give anyone pause. And if it’s true for boys of five or six, who’s to say it’s not true for even younger ones. Come to think of it, I reported not long ago on a study out of the University of Chicago that found that sons of single mothers receive less in the way of “parental investment” than their sisters do.

But what Dell’ Antonia is writing about isn’t just single mothers, but married ones as well. There seems to be a generalized concern that boys won’t grow up to be strong, autonomous men. Needless to say, the fear that they’ll be gay is part and parcel of that.

And it comes as no surprise that popular culture is there on the sidelines cheering every dysfunctional concept of masculinity.[...]

But the main point of Dell’ Antonio’s article [the original NYT article this is all about] is the hesitancy many mothers have about showing “too much” affection to their sons. They don’t have the same problems with their daughters because our culture tells us that love and tenderness toward girls and women is OK, but the same toward boys and men can be suspect.

Obviously the problem is less one of sexual politics than it is of how best to raise children. Whatever your take on gender equality, little boys need and deserve as much love as little girls do and it’s wrong of parents not to give it to them.

If parents hesitate to do that because they fear little Andy won’t grow up to be a manly man, they need to take a closer look at what being a man is all about. Here’s a hint: they won’t find it at the movies. The usual cast of tough-guy heroes and anti-heroes that Hollywood spews out are almost exclusively bad examples of masculinity. The simple fact is that 99.9% of men bear no resemblance to them and that’s usually a good thing.

If parents need to educate themselves about what it means to be a man, they need to broaden their scope considerably. They need to look around and remember that Jesus and the Buddha were men as well as Mozart, Darwin and Einstein. So were Shakespeare, Julius Caesar, Plato and Confucius. The point being that men have always come in an astonishing array of types from the King to the Warrior to the Priest to the Poet. The failure of a boy to be Rambo may just mean his success at being Rilke.

Parents should not allow themselves to be deluded by a pop culture that blinds itself to the wonder of boys and men. Few parents will produce the next Bard of Avon, but each child needs his/her parent’s love. That should never be withheld because a boy seems to be insufficiently “manly.” “Man” has a million definitions, all of which are valid and many of which are wonderful. Parents who try to confine their male children into a pinched, narrow idea of manhood do themselves and their children a grave disservice. That goes double for parents who withhold their affection from boys out of strange concern that giving it is in some way detrimental to him.

I wanted to find some data on this and went to google scholar. One study I found was not that promising in terms of sample size:

Risk Factors for Violent Behavior in Elementary School Boys: Have You Hugged Your Child Today? - Jonathan L. Sheline, MD, MS, Betty J. Skipper, PhD - 1994

The parenting practices most strongly associated with violent behavior in our study were lack of affection shown by either parent, especially fathers, and use of spanking for discipline.

As said before small sample size. I however came also across this:

Handbook of Parenting Volume 1 - Children and Parenting - Chapter 7 - Parenting Girls and Boys - Campbell Leaper - 2002

First, mothers may be more verbally stimulating than fathers when interacting with their young children. The meta-analysis of Leaper et al. (1998) indicated that across studies mothers tend to
be more talkative with their children than are fathers. In this way, mothers and fathers may offer different role models to their children about the importance of verbal expression —which might both maintain and perpetuate the stereotype that women are more talk oriented than men. Second, the meta-analysis indicated that mothers tended to be more talkative with daughters than with sons. [...]

Besides the differential amounts of talkativeness that parents may demonstrate with daughters versus sons, there may be differences in parents ’ reactions to girls ’ and boys ’ communication initiatives. Fagot and Hagan (1991) found that, among parents of 18-month-old toddlers, sons received more negative comments in response to communication attempts than did daughters. Consequently, the authors suggested, boys may find it less enjoyable to initiate talk than do girls. [...]

More physical contact has been observed in mother– daughter than in mother –son pairs during the toddler years (Austin and Braeger, 1990; Clarke-Stewart and Hevey, 1981; Lamb, Frodi, Frodi,
and Hwang, 1982) and early childhood (Benenson, Morash, and Petrakos, 1998). Fathers may also be more likely to make physical contacts and maintain closer proximity with daughters than with
sons during the toddler years (Snow, Jacklin, and Maccoby, 1983) and possibly into adolescence and adulthood (Barber and Thomas, 1986; also see Barnard and Solchany, in Vol. 3 of this Handbook; Parke, in Vol. 3 of this Handbook).

In addition to physical touch, simply talking to a child may foster a sense of closeness. If so, mothers appear to engage in more talk with daughters than with sons—as seen in the meta-analysis
of Leaper et al. (1998). The effects were especially large from infancy through early childhood — which is notable because these are the years when children typically spend the most time with their mothers. To the extent that sons are engaging in fewer conversations with their mothers, they may develop a greater sense of separateness and independence. Once again, we must be cautious when interpreting the causal direction in the pattern of results.

A third way that parents may express affection is through the use of supportive statements. The meta-analysis of Leaper et al. (1998) uncovered some trends across studies. There was a small yet significant overall trend for mothers to use more supportive statements with daughters than with sons. The pattern of results is consistent with the relatively greater emphasis on affiliation associated with the socialization of girls compared with that of boys (e.g., Block, 1983; Leaper, 2000b; Leaper, Hauser, Kremen, Powers, Jacobson, Noam, Weiss-Perry, and Follansbee, 1989).
In sum, the research literature suggests that parents may express more physical and verbal affection with daughters than with sons. In these ways, parents may both initiate and encourage interpersonal closeness during girls ’ development. [...]

Whereas the evidence for parent-gender differences in emotion talk may be mixed, studies more reliably show that parents’ talk tends to be different with daughters and sons during early childhood.
First, parents tend to discuss more emotional experiences and use more frequent and varied emotional words and references with their daughters than with their sons (Adams et al., 1995; Dunn, Bretherton, and Munn, 1987; Eisenberg, 1999; Fivush, 1998; Flannagan and Perese, 1998). Thus, parents may give their daughters more opportunities to practice emotion talk than they give their sons (see Melzi and Fern ´andez, 2001, for a possible exception under different cultural conditions).

Second, in addition to differing in the amount of emotion talk, parents tend to vary in the type of emotional talk used with girls and boys. References to sadness or discussions of sad events are
more likely with daughters than with sons (Adams et al., 1995; Fivush et al., 2000). In contrast, parent–child conversations about anger are more likely with sons than daughters (Brody, 1999;
Fivush, 1991). Anger is a self-assertive emotion, and therefore its expression is congruent with the traditional masculine role. In contrast, sadness is a more passive and self-reflective state.

A third gender-related pattern seen in the literature is that parents may teach girls and boys to think differently about emotions. With daughters, parents may tend to emphasize the emotional situation and experience itself (Fivush, 1989); with sons, they tend to discuss the causes and consequences of the emotions (Cervantes and Callanan, 1998; Fivush, 1989). Parents may thereby strengthen the notion in their children that girls should be more emotionally sensitive and understanding, whereas boys should be in control of their emotions.

Is there any evidence that variations in parents ’ emotion talk with daughters and sons may affect their children ’s own emotional development? One study suggests that there may be a relation. Dunn, Brown, Slomkowski, Tesla, and Youngblade (1991) looked at mothers ’ conversations about feelings with their 2-year-old toddlers. They found that mothers tended to discuss and explain feelings more with their daughters than with sons at this age. Approximately half a year later, there was a correlation between mothers ’ earlier emotion talk and the older child ’s level of emotion understanding. Of course, it is possible that daughters were already more advanced in emotional development at the younger age and that this influenced the mothers ’ behavior. Nonetheless, the findings of Dunn and her colleagues suggest that parents ’ behavior may have an impact on the child. Three more studies provide some corroborating evidence for the potential influence of parents on the development of gender differences in emotion expression. First, Fuchs and Thelen (1988) examined school-age children’s expected outcomes from their parents for expressing particular emotions and their stated likelihood of expressing emotions. Boys were more likely than girls to expect negative reactions for expressing sadness, and negative expectancies were related to being less likely of expressing sadness. Thus, boys may have internalized from their parents a display rule about the expression of sadness.

A second source for inferring possible parental influences comes from Bronstein, Briones, Brooks, and Cowan (1996). They carried out a longitudinal study of emotional development in children
from fifth grade (11 years of age) into late adolescence. Overall, adolescent girls reported more support for emotional expression than did the adolescent boys. [...]

Finally, Brody (1997) offered evidence suggesting that nontraditional upbringings may influence girls ’ and boys ’ emotional development. She looked at the relation between fathers’ amount
of involvement with their children and the children ’s emotional expression. Fathers ’ involvement appeared to influence daughters and sons differently. Sons of highly involved fathers were more
likely to express nontraditional emotions such as fear and warmth. Daughters of highly involved fa-thers were less likely to express fear and sadness. Thus, it would seem that involved fathers fostered tenderness in sons and self-confidence in daughters. [...]

Gender-role options are more rigidly defined for boys than for girls during child-hood, as illustrated by the different connotations that the terms sissy and tomboy evoke (Martin, 1990).

That was a lot and that was a book full of studies which I skimmed through and copied interesting tidbits in. However, there seems to be a scientific basis for those claims, I have my data and can finally publish this post.....YEAAAAAAAH.

Shorter work days and flexibility vs creating wealth

Found via a link in a link in a link or so. Sometimes I wonder if I even should give credit. The first link was via Reddit though. Anyhow we are talking about what different things men and women want in the context of work:

The study found that while 5.6 percent of men would opt for fewer work hours, 10.1 percent of women would prefer less time spent in the office. The gap might reflect women’s disproportionate share of household responsibilities, the researchers say. Another explanation might be that women just feel they need to spend more time at home with their children.

The results, detailed in the April issue of the U.S. Department of Labor's Monthly Labor Review, have implications for understanding why women’s participation in the labor force, which had climbed in the early 1990s, has leveled off over the past five to 10 years, said the study’s lead author Lonnie Golden, a Penn State University economist.[...]

Golden analyzed data from the 2001 U.S. Current Population Survey, in which more than 57,000 individuals responded to supplemental questions involving work-hour preferences. The survey, conducted by the U.S. Census Bureau, produces monthly and annual-average estimates of the nation’s employment and unemployment.[...]

The findings related to women in the workplace point out a need for re-structuring of the workplace, Golden said. Economists and other labor researchers have debated whether women leave the workforce because they are happier at home or because the workplace is too rigid and prevents a balanced work-home life.

There was also this study:

Differences between women and men MBA entrepreneurs: exploring family flexibility and wealth creation as career motivators - Richard DeMartino, Robert Barbato - 2002

The purpose of this study was to compare male and female entrepreneurs with similar backgrounds; in particular, all received MBA degrees from a top-tier business school. [...]

Although the male and female entrepreneurs have similar backgrounds, demographics, and timing and age of their businesses, several differences were found. When asked about the career motivators that were most important, women entrepreneurs preferred a career that gave them flexibility and allowed them to balance their career with their family obligations. While these were the most important considerations for women entrepreneurs, they were among the
least important for male entrepreneurs. In contrast, the male entrepreneurs were most motivated by careers that would allow them to create wealth, while female entrepreneurs indicated that creating wealth and career advancement were the least important motivations. The differences between these two groups were large and meaningful. This confirms the findings of previous researchers (Geoffee and Scase, 1983; Scott, 1986; Kaplin, 1988, Buttner, 1993) who also found similar differences. This finding also contradicts the findings of previous research by Fischer et al. (1993), who found that women entrepreneurs were more motivated by financial considerations than male entrepreneurs.

These differences became even larger when the comparison was between married women and men entrepreneurs with dependent children. This helps to explain the findings of Caputo and Kolinsky (1998), who found that the presence of children increased the propensity of women to start their own businesses. The percentage difference between the two groups increases in every career motivator in this study with the largest increases occurring in the motivations to meet family obligations and have family friendly policies. Most of the increase in difference occurs, however, because of the effect of dependent children on women entrepreneurs. For the most part, married male entrepreneurs with dependent children do not differ from unmarried male entrepreneurs in terms of their career motivations.
Conversely, an alternative dynamic appears to emerge when comparing single women and men without dependents to married women and men without dependents. When this comparison is made, gender differences emerge in only one of the six variables tested, i.e., wealth creation. This finding reinforces the importance of dependent status on career
motivators for women entrepreneurs and confirms the research of Still and Timms (2000).

In summary, the findings of this study support previous research that women are using entrepreneurship as a career choice that provides them flexibility to manage family obligations. It provides a nuanced view of these differences when the motivations of men and women are compared by marital and dependent status. Overall, women differ from men by possessing a higher intensity of preference for family-related motivators. The most significant differences, however, emerged when comparing married women with dependents and married men with dependents. Comparisons between single and married men and women without dependents did not demonstrate statistically significant differences. It is important to underscore that the gender differences detected in this study, which compares MBA graduates, are similar to those reported in other studies. This is an important point, because some researchers suggest that previously reported differences could be a result of women having less business knowledge and education and lower potential for advancement. This study, however, concludes that these differences can also be explained by differences in career motivators. The study provides evidence in support of those studies that suggest that women entrepreneurs are more motivated by the need to balance work and family responsibilities.

Entrepreneurship as a career can offer a degree of flexibility and balance that some other careers do not offer. This study provides some clues as to why women-owned businesses now make up 40% of all businesses and why women continue to start businesses at twice the rate of men.

To highlight one sentence from the above study "Comparisons between single and married men and women without dependents did not demonstrate statistically significant differences". This, as well as the wage-gap for single childless women, teaches us an interesting lesson, when it comes to the wage gap as well as motivations behind it, we will find less blatant discrimination and more different life choices. So everyone who points out the 77c number is missing the mark. It those differences come from nature or nurture is a different question. I am sure the answer is both, to what degree is debatable. As for nurture, one thing I'd like to mention as well which often is forgotten in feminist discussion on this topic, it goes for both men and women. We raise men to be the provider and raise women to be the nurturer. Depending on the influence of nature (I always like to cite a women's experience during pregnancy / breast feeding, which gives women an edge when it comes to bonding, as an example) we might not be able to produce equal results (= no pay gap), we should however work hard to make both roles for everyone acceptable. Feminists did a good job in opening up the provider role for women, it is time we do something for men/fathers.