Band of Brothers
At Cognitive Daily, Men often treat their friends better than women do:
The researchers say these three studies show that men are more tolerant of their friends’ failings than women. Does this mean that men are more “sociable”? That’s less certain. After all, it could be that women value the friendships more, and so are harsher judges when they perceive a betrayal. Regardless of your interpretation of these results, however, it seems that the stereotype of “men harsh, women friendly” is not always valid. In many cases, it can be said that women are less tolerant than men.
The research focused on college roommates. The only area where males were harsher than females in evaluating their roommates was in hygiene. In any case, there’s other research which I’ve drawn upon to suggest that males are much better are scaling up in terms of social units capable of “collective action” than females.
Labels: Sociology
First, I submit that failings and betrayals are two separate categories. But that doesn’t mean that women are equally tolerant of failings.
I think both sexes are very intolerant of betrayal, but perhaps women perceive more actions (or inactions) to be betrayals than do men.
Second, the men in my life have been much more tolerant of the failing of their friends and acquaintances than the women. I think men are more tolerant of female failings than women are of those of either sex.
A particular case: a man belongs to the same union as my husband. My husband, along with several other union members have tried to help this man and his family many times over the years. While I think the daughter is innocent and have offered her our home as refuge unconditionally, I have no more sympathy for her mother than I do the father and would have cut them both off years ago.
My husband and his friends continued to give not only cash out of their pockets, but staked their reputations on recommending him for jobs, which he invariably quit after a few weeks.
For jobs which pay on average $30/hr, with health insurance and retirement benefits… he was a fool to give them up. And I was quite unforgiving of his foolishness. And of his wife for putting up with it. I had little respect for her excuse for not working being not knowing how to drive.
So… yeah, maybe women are much less tolerant.
Aside from what you mentioned about males having to operate better in big groups, if we lived in a society with endemic violence (or the persistent threat of it), you’d see more balance between male and female harshness.
Modern societies have consolidated the legitimate use of violence, so that closes off the primary margin that men compete along, as far as going for the jugular. We haven’t consolidated the legitimate use of gossip and rumor, pointing-and-laughing, and other forms of ostracism. So girls are just as savage as they always have been.
This might be from male hunters nature.
On the “males are much better are scaling up in terms of social units capable of ‘collective action’” hypothesis, Roy Baumeister has some interesting things to say. This is from a 2007 APA address
(http://www.psy.fsu.edu/~baumeistertice/goodaboutmen.htm)
Gender inequality seems to have increased with early civilization, including agriculture. Why? The feminist explanation has been that the men banded together to create patriarchy. This is essentially a conspiracy theory, and there is little or no evidence that it is true. Some argue that the men erased it from the history books in order to safeguard their newly won power. Still, the lack of evidence should be worrisome, especially since this same kind of conspiracy would have had to happen over and over, in group after group, all over the world.
Let me offer a different explanation. It?s not that the men pushed the women down. Rather, it?s just that the women?s sphere remained about where it was, while the men?s sphere, with its big and shallow social networks, slowly benefited from the progress of culture. By accumulating knowledge and improving the gains from division of labor, the men?s sphere gradually made progress.
Hence religion, literature, art, science, technology, military action, trade and economic marketplaces, political organization, medicine ? these all mainly emerged from the men?s sphere. The women?s sphere did not produce such things, though it did other valuable things, like take care of the next generation so the species would continue to exist.
Why? It has nothing to do with men having better abilities or talents or anything like that. It comes mainly from the different kinds of social relationships. The women?s sphere consisted of women and therefore was organized on the basis of the kind of close, intimate, supportive one-on-one relationships that women favor. These are vital, satisfying relationships that contribute vitally to health and survival. Meanwhile the men favored the larger networks of shallower relationships. These are less satisfying and nurturing and so forth, but they do form a more fertile basis for the emergence of culture.
The whole thing is pretty interesting.
I think the ‘male networks=broader, but shallower’ could explain being more forgiving of your neighbor’s failings. You gloss over small things to build a better, more far-reaching network, which is important for male group activities like hunting, war, etc.
This reminds me of a telling line in some chick TV sitcom (Sex in the City, Desperate Housewives?) in which one female protagonist tells another, “Nobody likes their friends! Well, maybe men do.” The implication being that female friendships, while more intense, tend also to be more judgmental and more quick to focus on one another’s flaws in taste, clothes, men, behaviors, etc. while men “like” their friends precisely because they don’t focus on intense analysis of each others flaws.