Men Are Exceptional

Variance and Risk

The bulk of the observed differences between male and female life outcomes can be explained with reference to only two differences:

Men tend to vary more for most characteristics
Men are more inclined to take risks than women.

Men tend to vary in characteristics more than women. This has been shown to be true for all characteristics that have been studied and there is good evidence to suggest it is generally true.(Citation needed)

List characteristics that have been shown to have greater variance among men. eg, Intelligence

Everywhere we go we see the same trend. Men tending to excel at the top of society and other men tending to fall to the bottom of society, with a smaller group of men and most women clustered in the middle.

When the females of a species invest significantly more energy in to reproduction than males then the size of the next generation is largely constrained by the number of fertile females. As a result of this a species can generally tolerate the loss of a male more easily than the loss of a female. It thus makes sense for a species to allow males to vary more in their characteristics. If a characteristic is disadvantageous to a species then the loss of males will be less damaging than the loss of females. If the characteristics is advantageous it can be spread to the rest of the community. Thus testing new characteristics on males is an advantage to a species overall and so we find men vary in their characteristics more than women.

This is generally true for any species where females must invest significantly more energy into reproduction than males. Thus most mammal species follow the same trend.

In case case of humans tendency this leads to significant implications for society.

Men often engage in risky behaviour. This is often done, by heterosexual men, to impress women. A common opinion among biologists is that this is an evolved characteristic to allow men to demonstrate fitness to potential mates(Citation needed)

Consequences

These tendencies has a widespread and profound impact on the human species and human civilisation and goes a very long way to explaining the observed differences between men and women in terms of life choices and outcomes.

Income differential is partly a result of exceptionality and partly a result of risk taking, but many other factors are relevant too.

Scientific Research

The nobel prize has been overwhelmingly won by men.

Some argue that female scientists have been marginalised and their accomplishments attributed to men. That may be true in some cases but the reverse is true also. Marie Curie is often remembered for conducting groundbreaking research in to radioactivity. Most know her name, but her know that she collaborated with two other scientists for this work - her cusband Pierre Curie and Henri Becquere. Marie was actually significantly younger than either of these men and was the junior of the three scientists. Despite this she is often held up as the epitome of the female scientist.

Medicine

More than half of doctors are women but they tend to become GPs. Most specialists are men. This can be explained through the greater variance among men. If we take surgery as an example. A surgeon needs to be intelligent, to have achieved both a medical degree and to have passed in this demanding speciality. But that isn't sufficient. A surgeon needs an exceptionally steady hand and good manual dexterity - this cannot be taught. An individual either has these characteristics or they do not.

http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20080821080510AA8cKS5

Business

Business and political leaders are overwhelmingly men. These are high risk occupations. Success often involves riches and glory. Failure can mean significant loss and in extreme cases destitution.

Homelessness and criminality

Homeless, criminals and prison inmates are overwhelmingly men.

Music

Vast majority of composers are men

Majority of musicians are men. Many orchestras have around 25-30% female participation[1]

Vast majority of jazz musicians are men.

Conflict

Men contitute the vast majority of casualties in all forms of physical conflict.

People who volunteerily join the armed forces are accepting the risks that this lifestyle entails. Even in societies were women are entitled to take up arms, it is men who overwhelmingly do so. People join the military for a variety of reasons but one important aspect is the inherently highly risk nature of this occupation.

Men tend to be over-represented among the casualties in revolutions. While men and women may seek to overturn oppressive regimes it is men who pay the price in blood to make that happen.

Y Chomosome

Quite a lot has been made of the poor Y chromosome of late. Claims are made that it is small, broken and inadequate. This is just more casual misandry. Those making statements like this have, at least, a fundamentally flawed view of human sexual selection and genetics. The y-chromosome is the basis of the exceptionality of men. It destabilises human genetics, which is precisely what you need to have exceptional individuals. It is why more male foetuses abort but it is also why there are more male nobel prize winners, and great poets. Many of those denigrating the y-chromosome are ignoring the evidence right in front of their eyes. They try to presume to understand the effects of the y-chromosome when all they need to do is look at the world to find them. Look out of the window. That's the world and the innovations and structures we see around us were overwhelmingly brought about by men. Looking back at the computer or smartphone screen - that world was overwhelmingly brought about by men too. Vety few women have been involved. This is the elephant in the corner when it comes to discussions about gender. Women who want to achieve need only go out and do so - and a minority have done just that both today and in times past while they supposedly lived under a patriarchy.

Conclusion

This article has discussed at length the notion of greater variation among men and risk taking behaviour in men, the negative and positive consequences of these and how they explains many of the historical trends observed.

It should be obvious to everyone today that women perform wide vaiety of paid employment competently. This is not new with women having participated in the workforce of a community throughout history. The idea that women were forced to stay home and cook and clean through the ages until a recent emancipation just does not stand up to even a cursory review of the range of human societies that have existed through time. Most women, however, tend to choose work that is clean and safe. Most women are clustered near the middle of society - most in safe and moderatelty well paying employment. Relatively few women are homeless and outcasts from society, and few are making radical achievements that will fundamentally change the state of human affairs.

The world needs men. Human civilisation needs men. Many areas of employment are overwhelmingly performed by men. Despite high levels of youth unemployment around the world young women are not even trying to work in these areas. Perhaps most women could do these jobs but we can't know, given that most of them won't even try.

Men are over-represented in the top rankings of virtually every area of endeavour. Some people look up, see mostly men and make claims of patriarchy. Those people need to look down. If they do they will also see mostly men.

If society really is a meritocracy, as the evidence presented in this article tends to suggest, then the most important characteristic that will determine success in life is merit.

Even preferences cannot fully explain the gender bias seen in many areas of endeavour, as the bias tends to get more significant as one approaches tbe most exceptional levels of achievement.

In the end statistical analysis of the relative merits of different groups of humans is interesting but it says nothing about the ability of a particular individual human to achieve. Just because men dominate in positions of political power does not mean that any given man is suitable for public office.

The title of this article may seem incendiary and may have caused some people to become angry. The title is of course a pun. Men are exceptional - but this means that men are over-represented among the most successful people in society but also over-represened among the least successful people in society. The title is offered as proof that Hanna Rosin, author of "The End of Men" and "Men are Obsolete" is not the only person who an write articles with provocative titles.

A commentation on AVFM suggested that history can be explained as families trying to retain power and that powerful families  
will allow the most competent member to generally take positions of authority.  The fact that the bulk of such positions were  
taken by men can be explained by understanding that men are more likely to engage in risky behaviour
and vary more than women.  It is likely that the most and least competent members of the family will be men.

I decided not to post this to reddit:

This may still leave you wondering why most of the top roles are held by men and not women.  I am currently writing an article  
that aims to answer that and several other questions about observed differences between men and women.  At the risk of slightly 
pre-empting my own article, two of the main differences between men and women are the greater tendency of men to engage in 
risky behaviour, and the the tendency for men to vary more than women in measurable characteristics (surprising as this might 
be, this idea is now backed by solid data).

The upshot here is that if you have a group of people who are competing for top roles the most capable and the most likely to take calculated risks will tend to win out overall. In many cases we can expect more men than women to be among the over-achievers and among the under-achievers. But the top roles are taken by the over-achievers, who are more likely to be men. As such it is important that we guarantee humans equality of opportunity but avoid using quotas to guarantee equality of outcome.