The Psychology of Gender (2020) by Vicki S. Helgeson is a comprehensive, research-based textbook that explores how gender influences our thoughts, behaviors, relationships, and health. Drawing from psychology, sociology, and public health, it examines both biological and social foundations of gender—and how they shape real-world outcomes.

Exec Summary

• Men and women are more similar than different, but
• There are important gender differences
• Differences are due to many factors including biology, evolution, culture, socialization, and ‘social roles’ and social expectations
  • Differences change over time as cultures, social roles, and expectations change

FULL SUMMARY

About the Author:
Vicki S. Helgeson is a professor of psychology at Carnegie Mellon University and the director of the Gender, Relationships, and Health Lab.
Her research focuses on how gender-related traits and roles impact interpersonal relationships and health, and is especially known for her work on unmitigated communion and agency in chronic illness populations.

1: Introduction: Definitions

Helgeson kicks off by distinguishing sex (biological, rooted in genes and hormones) from gender (a fluid, socially constructed category tied to cultural expectations).

Gender roles—expectations tied to being male or female—often spark intrarole conflict (e.g., women balancing emotional expression with sensitivity) and interrole conflict (e.g., a male student torn between independence and group work).

Key Definitions

• Sex: The biological categories of female and male, determined by chromosomes, hormones, and anatomy.
• Gender: The social and cultural meanings assigned to being female or male—masculinity versus femininity.
• Gender role: The set of expectations and norms that society attaches to each biological sex. For example, the expectation that men be assertive and women be nurturing.
• Sex vs. Gender: Men and women differ biologically (sex), but societal roles (gender) shape behavior more variably.
• Gender identity/gender-role identity: One’s internal sense of self as psychologically male or female (or, in some cases, both or neither).
• Sex typing (gender typing): The process by which individuals acquire the behaviors, attitudes, and traits deemed appropriate for their sex in a given culture. Those who conform to these expectations are labeled “sex-typed,” whereas those whose traits do not align are “cross-sex-typed.”
• Androgyny: The combination of masculine and feminine traits within a single individual, resulting from high scores on measures of both masculinity and femininity.

2. Violating Gender Norms Is Costly

Both men and women ‘pay a price’ for violating gender roles.

Because gender roles are closely tied to status, men incur harsher repercussions for adopting behaviors deemed feminine (thus moving “down” in the status hierarchy), whereas women adopting traditionally masculine behaviors can be applauded (moving “up” in status).

My note: I’m not convinced about this explanation.
I think it’s more because masculinity ‘must be proven and upheld’, while womanhood is more granted at birth.

3: Gender-Role Attitudes

Helgeson explores how attitudes shape gender perceptions, from sexism to stereotypes.

Attitudes toward Men’s and Women’s Roles

• Traditional Gender Ideology: The belief that a man’s place is in the public sphere (work), while a woman’s place is in the private sphere (home). Implicitly assumes men hold greater power.
• Egalitarian Gender Ideology: The belief that women and men should share roles equally—both can work outside and inside the home.
• Transitional Ideology: A middle ground wherein both sexes participate in work and family, but women still maintain primary responsibility for home, whereas men focus more on paid work.

Practical Takeaways:

• Sexism comes in different forms be overt or ‘modern’.
  • Overt (e.g., women are less competent) versus modern (covert, denying discrimination)
  • Hostile (antagonistic) versus benevolent (paternalistic)
    Also see ‘benevolent racism‘

• Benevolent sexism, despite its “positive” veneer, reinforces women’s perceived inferiority. “It justifies exploitation” (Jackman, 1994).

4: Sex-Related Comparisons: Observations

Here, Helgeson catalogs observed differences, emphasizing similarities often overshadow them.

5: Cognitive Abilities

Spatial Ability

• Mental Rotation & Spatial Perception: Moderate sex differences favoring men (d ≈ +.44 to +.60), especially on tasks requiring rapid mental transformation of 3D objects (Voyer, Voyer, & Bryden, 1995; confirmed by later studies).
• Object Location Memory: Women outperform men (d ≈ +.27) for eyes-on‐table tasks, especially when objects are gender‐neutral or feminine; men sometimes outperform women when objects are masculine (Voyer et al., 2007).
• Navigation: Men are more likely to use cardinal directions (north/east/south/west), whereas women favor landmark‐based directions.

Mathematical Ability

• Historically, small sex differences favored men (d ≈ +.15 in 1990), but gaps have narrowed over time due to educational reforms and societal shifts
• Recent large‐scale standardized tests (SAT, TIMSS) show minimal or no reliable differences among most cohorts, except at the extreme upper tail (fewer females in the top 0.5%).
• Most recent studies show no difference but the variance in male scores remains slightly larger than in females.

Verbal Ability

Women typically score slightly higher than men on verbal fluency, reading comprehension, and writing tasks (d ≈ +.11–.21), though differences are small and diminish with age.

• There is a small sex difference in verbal ability, favoring females.
• The size of the sex difference depends on the specific verbal ability
• Writing has a larger sex difference.
• One reason for the sex difference in verbal ability has to do with the fact that a larger proportion of males than females have verbal difficulties

Memory

• Verbal Memory: Women outperform men on tasks requiring recall of spoken words or stories (small to moderate effect sizes).
• Nonverbal Memory: Mixed findings, with some tasks favoring men (e.g., remembering spatial locations of objects) and others favoring women (e.g., remembering faces).

6: Social and Emotional Domains

Two types of aggression:

1. Physical Aggression: Men exhibit higher rates of direct physical aggression from adolescence onward (large effect sizes, d ≈ +.62).
2. Relational Aggression: Women engage more in gossip, social exclusion, and rumor spreading—forms of indirect aggression. Adult data are more mixed.

However, the gender difference in aggression depends largely on arousal levels:

At low and high levels of arousal, sex differences in aggression are small. At medium levels of arousal, sex differences in aggression are largest.

Emotional Expression

• Women report—and exhibit—greater emotional expressiveness (d ≈ +.76 for self‐report, smaller for observational measures). Facial expression studies (e.g., smile frequency) show women smile more than men in social contexts (d ≈ +.44). However, when emotion is internally felt, sex differences diminish; much of the gap reflects display rules and socialization

• Differences in emotional expressiveness vanish in one‐on‐one interactions but appear more prominently in group or public settings where gender norms are salient

Help-Seeking and Support

• Women are more likely to seek social support for emotional problems; men are more likely to seek instrumental help only when problems are severe (d ≈ +.30). Men’s reluctance to seek help is linked to masculine norms of self‐reliance
  • Muted emotions decrease support: failing to reveal one’s emotions and problems makes it difficult for others to provide support when needed. Indeed, restricted emotions have been linked to reduced social support, which has been linked to increased psychological distress (Wester et al. , 2007).

• Hep-Giving Men help people they do not know, which is akin to helping society at large, whereas women help people they do know and with whom they have a relationship, such as family and friends
  • Men help more: according to an older meta-analysis of helping behavior (Eagly & Crowley, 1986). The effect was in the direction of males helping more than females (d = +.34). The 172 studies in this review measured actual helping behavior or the self-report of a commitment to engage in a helping behavior
  • Women more likely to volunteer: more recent literature concludes that men are more likely than women to help in situations of danger or emergencies, that women are more likely than men to help within the context of relationships (Dovidio & Penner, 2001) and in non-threatening situations such as volunteering (U.S. Department of Labor, 2009a)
  • Sex of the recipient: Males were more likely to help females than males, whereas females were equally likely to help females and males.
  • Situation: Males were more likely than females to help in situations of danger

Communication Styles

• Women use more “rapport‐talk” (building connections, listening cues), whereas men use more “report‐talk” (information exchange, problem‐solving) (Tannen, 1990).

• Differences are often small and context‐dependent—training (e.g., in mixed‐gender teams) reduces miscommunication.

Sexuality

• Women have more negative attitudes toward sex compared to men (Geer & Robertson, 2005). Even at younger ages, this seems to be true. A study of adolescents showed that males identified more benefits from having sex compared to females
  • Women reported more favorable attitudes than men toward gay men (study 1: d = -.18; study 2: d = -.14)

• Men report more sexual partners (study 1: d = +.36; study 2: d = +.15), more casual sex (d = +.38; d = +.18), more frequent masturbation (d = +.53; d = +.58), and greater use of pornography (d = +.63; d = +.46).

• Small differences appeared for the sex difference in sexual satisfaction (d = +.17; d = +.19), condom use (d = +.15; d = +.15), oral sex (d = +.06; d = +.16), and attitudes toward premarital sex (d = +.17; d = +.10)

Theories of Gender Differences

• Social role theory enjoys good empirical support and maybe the mainstream theory in current gender psychology.
  🙋🏼‍♂️ Lucio’s note: roles have an impact of course, but I believe it may be overblown in gender studies
• Cognitive development theory fits well with social role theory since one must learn the social role
• Biological theory is ‘harder science’, but it’s criticized when over-extended to explain complex behavior or when ignoring social and environmental factors
• Evolutionary theory is criticized in mainstream gender studies
  🙋🏼‍♂️ Lucio’s note: but we believe here it provides strong foundations to explain structural differences, especially when it comes to reproduction-linked behaviors and attitudes (and many are)
• Psychoanalytic theory lacks empirical evidence, relies heavily on untestable concepts (e.g., Oedipal complex), and is not falsifiable and largely outdated in modern academic psychology

7: Achievement

Both genders strive for success, but men pursue status more, while women balance achievement with relationships and may fear success more, associating it with social costs.

Men’s assertiveness aligns with agency, while women’s communal traits can hinder bold pursuits.

Socially, parents and teachers reinforce stereotypes—girls nudged toward nurturing, boys toward competition (Kenney-Benson et al., 2006).

1 Academic Performance

• Grades and Coursework: Girls outperform boys in language, reading, and overall GPA; boys slightly outperform girls in math and science courses only in certain regions or settings.
  • Gaps narrow in more egalitarian cultures, suggesting social factors heavily influence performance.

2 Interest and Motivation

• Subjects of Interest: Boys show greater interest in STEM fields and spatial tasks; girls show greater interest in language arts and social sciences.
• Expectancy–Value Model: Achievement depends on self‐efficacy (belief in one’s competence) and task value (perceived usefulness). Gendered expectations and stereotypes influence these perceptions early on

3 Occupational Aspirations and Choices

• STEM Pipeline: Fewer women pursue STEM majors, partly due to stereotype threat (fear of confirming negative stereotypes), lower self‐efficacy, and lack of same-sex mentors.
• Career Sex Typing: Many vocations remain strongly “male‐typed” (e.g., engineering) or “female‐typed” (e.g., nursing). Efforts to reframe “necessary traits” (e.g., collaborative engineering) can reduce gender segregation.

4 Gender Disparities in Late Achievement

• Glass Ceiling: Although women now attain advanced degrees in nearly equal numbers, they remain underrepresented in top‐level executive positions.
• Work–Family Conflict: Disproportionate family responsibilities can hamper women’s career advancement. Supportive policies (e.g., flexible hours, parental leave) narrow this gap.

5 Confidence

Evidence indicates that agentic self-definitions are related to men’s self-esteem, and communal self-definitions are related to women’s self-esteem.
Men’s self-esteem seems to be based on power, differentiating themselves from others, effectiveness, and independent action, whereas women’s self-esteem is based on relationships and connections (Miller, 1991)

• Women underestimate their abilities: females earn higher grades in most subjects in school but evaluate their competence lower than that of boys—with the exception of language.
  Interestingly, women will defend other women’s abilities but not necessarily their own. Collis (1991) refers to this as the “We can but I can’t” paradox.
• The major factor that influences sex differences in selfconfidence is the nature of the task.
• Sex differences in self-confidence seem to be limited to masculine tasks; it is here that women tend to underestimate their performance and lack self-confidence.
• Part of the sex difference in self-confidence is due to women appearing less confident. Women are more reluctant than men to display confidence
• Women’s self-esteem is more affected by social feedback: In Johnson and Helgeson (2002) study Women’s self-esteem improved after positive supervisor evaluation and drastically decreased after negative evaluation. Men’s self-esteem was unaffected by the feedback they received from their supervisor. Women also took the evaluation process more seriously, regarded the feedback as more accurate, and viewed their supervisors as credible sources.
  • Women are more influenced by feedback. Roberts and NolenHoeksema (1994, Study 2) study shows women’s self-evaluation changed more than men’s self-evaluations depending on feedback.
    Taken together, seems to me to mean to suggest ‘thinner skin’ or more fragile ego

Women evaluated their speech as more positive after receiving positive feedback and more negative after receiving negative feedback. Men’s evaluations of their speech were relatively unaffected by the nature of the feedback they received. Source Adapted from Roberts and NolenHoeksema (1994, Study 2).

8: Communication

Helgeson notes women’s superior non-verbal decoding (e.g., reading emotions), while men dominate physically (e.g., touching).

In leadership contexts, men lead boldly, women mediate—reflecting role expectations.

1 Conversational Styles

• Rapport vs. Report (Tannen, 1990):
  • Rapport Talk (more typical of women): Emphasizes connection, empathy, and mutual understanding.
  • Report Talk (more typical of men): Focuses on information exchange, problem‐solving, and status assertion. This is ‘high power speaking‘
• Differences are context‐dependent and often exaggerated by media; in mixed‐gender teams, women may adopt report styles and vice versa when task demands shift.

2 Nonverbal Communication

• Women tend to maintain more eye contact, use more facial expressions, and adopt open body language. Men use more expansive gestures but less direct eye contact in mixed settings.
• Bachanneling differences: “Differences in listening cues (e.g., head nods, backchannels) can lead men to perceive women as more engaged, but women may perceive men’s minimal nodding as disinterest”.

3 Power Dynamics and Influence

• Interruptions and Turn‐Taking: Men interrupt women more often in mixed settings, which can reinforce status hierarchies.
• Persuasion: Men rely more on factual evidence; women leverage relationships and consensus. In some contexts (e.g., negotiations), a combination of both strategies yields the best results.
• High-power position allow the freedom to smile/not smile: Status was related to the freedom to smile rather than the tendency to smile, meaning that the high-status person could smile whenever he or she was in a good mood but the low-status person could not. The investigators suggested that people in positions of low power have constraints imposed on them in terms of how they behave; they are not as free as those in higher-power positions to express their feelings (Hecht and LaFrance, 1998) <— This clicked and it’s my current go-to explanation for the difference in smiling related to personal and rank-related power. Enlightening

4 Sex Differences in Workplace Communication

• Feedback and Criticism: Women receive more ambiguous feedback (e.g., “Not technical enough”), while men receive more direct feedback (“Your executable crashed”). Training managers on gender‐neutral feedback can improve performance evaluations.
• Women pay a price for power: a lack of communal characteristics is detrimental to women. When Hillary Clinton ran for the Democratic nominee for president of the United States, her strong, decisive, and overall agentic manner was judged harshly. Her ratings became more positive after a brief episode in which she shed a tear in response to an interviewer asking her how she was able to get out of the house everyday to hit the campaign trail. The expression of emotion reminded people of her communal qualities.

Also see our articles:

• Why Hillary Clinton lost
• How to combine power with femininity
• The curse of the successful woman (in dating)

9: Friendship

Friendships reveal intimacy gaps: women’s are closer, with more self-disclosure, while men’s are activity-based (Radmacher & Azmitia, 2006).

Men’s friendships face some extra barriers—competition, homophobia, and emotional inexpressiveness—.
The competition among men also leads to less disclosure, further impacting relationship closeness.

Cross-sex friendships offer men emotional support, women companionship, but face sexual tension—more so for men (Kurdek, 2008a).

1  Same‐Sex Friendships

• Women’s Friendships: Emphasize emotional intimacy, self‐disclosure, and co‐rumination (discussing problems repeatedly). While co‐rumination strengthens bonds, it also increases risk for anxiety and depression.
• Men’s Friendships: Focus on shared activities (sports, hobbies), mutual interests, and less overt emotional sharing. Support is often instrumental—helping fix a car or offering solutions.
• Men can disclose more during activities: In fact, self-disclosure between men usually takes place in the context of shared activities (Radmacher & Azmitia, 2006). Having something to do during the interaction may make men feel more comfortable self-disclosing.

2 Cross‐Sex Friendships

• Challenges:
  • Audience Challenge: Concern about how others interpret the relationship (platonic vs. romantic).
  • Emotional Bond Challenge: Distinguishing between friendship closeness and romantic interest.
  • Equality Challenge: Hierarchies can emerge if one sex is perceived as having higher status.
• Both sexes report benefits from cross‐sex friendships: diverse perspectives, broader social networks, and improved understanding of the other gender’s experiences

3 Friendship at Work

• Homophily: Tendency to befriend colleagues of the same race, gender, or departmental “field.”
• Workplace Friendships: Offer emotional support, career advice, and social resources—but may also introduce complications (conflicts of interest, gossip). Gender roles often dictate workplace friendship boundaries: men may avoid emotional topics, women may avoid discussing workplace politics if perceived as “backstabbing.”

10: Romantic Relationships

• Men value physical attractiveness, women value status
• Demand/Withdraw Pattern: Common—one partner (often the woman) demands discussion; the other (often the man) withdraws. This pattern predicts greater marital dissatisfaction
  • Conflict: Women confront, men retreat
• Emotional intimacy VS physical: Women emphasize emotional intimacy as essential to sexual satisfaction; men more often focus on physical aspects. Marital quality correlates more strongly with women’s perceptions of emotional closeness.
• Men better assessed partner’s infidelity: Men were fairly certain that their partner either did or did not have sex with someone else, whereas women expressed more uncertainty. Men were much more accurate in detecting infidelity (75% vs. 41%), but slightly less accurate in detecting fidelity (93% vs. 96%)
• Women are more strongly affected than men by their partners
• Power Play: Emotional detachment gives men leverage; women invest more.
• Increased masculine behavior ‘allows’ men to increase self-disclosure One way in which men are able to be expressive in the context of relationships is by compensating with increased masculine behavior in other arenas, such as more instrumental behavior (Migliaccio, 2009).

11: Sex Differences in Health: Evidence and Explanations

The health paradox—women’s higher morbidity, men’s higher mortality—anchors this chapter (Mitra & Shroff, 2008).

• Health Split: Women live longer but ail more; men die sooner from risks.
• Behavior: Men’s bravado (e.g., avoiding doctors) contrasts women’s health focus.
• Biology: Women’s physiology (e.g., less alcohol dilution) heightens some risks.
• Help‐Seeking Norms: Masculine norms discourage vulnerability—men delay care until illnesses are advanced

Agency is the best predictor of health

agency has been associated with greater perceived health, fewer physical symptoms, reduced psychological distress, reduced psychiatric problems, and better physical health (Ghaed & Gallo, 2006; Helgeson, 1994c). Agency also has been linked to a variety of good health practices, including physical activity, healthy eating, and good dental hygiene (Danoff-Burg, Mosher, & Grant, 2006). By contrast, communion is typically unrelated to psychological or physical health (Ghaed & Gallo, 2006; Helgeson, 1994c).Thus, some of men’s lower morbidity rates compared to women may be explained by the male genderrelated trait of agency

However, as for everything, balance:

unmitigated agency has been associated with reckless driving, substance use, binge eating, psychological distress, and overall lower levels of well-being (Danoff-Burg et al. , 2006; Ghaed & Gallo, 2006; Yu & Xie, 2008).
Although communion is typically unrelated to health, unmitigated communion is associated with poor health, especially greater psychological distress, disturbed eating behavior, and poor health behavior (Ghaed & Gallo, 2006; Helgeson & Fritz, 1996, 1998; Helgeson et al. , 2007; Yu & Xie, 2008)

For the record, this is the difference:

Agency

• Definition: Focus on the self — independence, assertiveness, control, achievement.
• Examples: Ambition, leadership, self-reliance, competence.
• “I act” / “I achieve.”

Communion

• Definition: Focus on others — warmth, cooperation, connection, nurturance.
• Examples: Empathy, kindness, emotional support, belonging.
• “I belong” / “I care.”

Unmitigated agency and communion refer to extreme versions of each.

12: Relationships and Health

Marriage benefits health, more for men (Kurdek, 2008a).
Women’s caregiving burdens offset gains, while men lean on wives for support. Relationship quality hits women harder—e.g., marital conflict spikes their stress (Heyman et al., 2009).

• Support: Women give more, men receive—roles dictate health impacts.
• Divorce leads to declines in health for both sexes but more for men. “Widowers” (men) also often suffer steeper drops in health and well-being

13: Mental Health

Women report more depression, men more substance abuse (except only for sedatives).
Women ruminate, men externalize distress. Suicide flips: men complete it more, women attempt it (Phillips, Li, & Zhang, 2002).

1 Depression

• Women have roughly twice the lifetime risk of major depressive disorder compared to men, albeit men’s depression may be undiagnosed, and some of it self-medicated with alcohol abuse.
• Explanations include:
• Biological: Hormonal fluctuations (e.g., postpartum, perimenopause).
• Psychosocial: Women’s greater tendency to ruminate
• Gender‐Role Strain: Rigid feminine norms (e.g., self‐sacrifice, appearance pressures) exacerbate vulnerability

2 Eating Disorders (Anorexia, Bulimia, Binge Eating)

• Predominantly affect women (10:1 female:male ratio). Body dissatisfaction, internalization of Western beauty ideals, and perfectionistic personality traits fuel these disorders
• Social Comparison and Self‐Objectification: Viewing oneself through an external lens predicts higher risk—women’s self‐worth often tied to appearance

3 Suicide and Self‐Harm

• Although more women attempt suicide, men die by suicide at higher rates (approx. 3:1), partially due to more lethal methods and potentially also by gender role where ‘getting it done’ is a more masculine ambition.
• Help‐Seeking Norms: Men’s reluctance to express vulnerability delays intervention
• Depression and Substance Use: Co‐occurrence with alcohol/drug misuse is higher in men, increasing suicide lethality

MORE WISDOM

Hypermasculine Men More Dominant And Anti-Gay

People who score high on hypermasculinity (extreme masculinity), have traditional gender-role attitudes, have a greater desire for dominance, and score high on benevolent or modern sexism have the most negative attitudes toward homosexuality (Kite & Whitley, 2003; Whitley & Egisdottir, 2000).
This is not surprising because homosexual behavior is a threat to traditional beliefs about men’s and women’s roles. Men are less tolerant than women of homosexuality because violation of the male gender role has more negative consequences. Because the male gender role has a higher status in our society, there is more to lose by violating the role.

🙋🏼‍♂️ Lucio’s note: hypermasculinity is a misguided measure
While I initially thought this was interesting and telling, I was appaled to find out that hypermasculinity is measured with questions that I’d largely consider to capture toxic masculinity.
I’m worried that any literature using this scale may be biased.

And…

Derogation of Evaluator Can Help Maintain Self-Esteem

Men who received negative feedback appeared to prepare themselves psychologically for the upcoming evaluation by derogating the source of the feedback (“My supervisor isn’t that smart”) and the feedback system (“The evaluation process is not fair”). In general, the results of this study supported the laboratory findings

Women May Influence & Be More Influenced Because of Agreeableness

The author claims that women tend to be more easily influenced than men not because of some inherent ‘influenceability’, but because people tend to approach women with a more agreeable attitude that’s generally more conducive to influencing others.

My note: Interesting theory, but not enough
It’s a valid theory that made me reflect and I think there may be some truth to it.
However, men likely resist influence more because influence is about power.

On the other hand, women are also more able to influence:

Although male respondents rated the female tentative speaker as less competent and less knowledgeable than the female assertive speaker, they were more influenced by her

Judge Power Dynamics Best Measure Relationship Power Dynamics

Albeit the author doesn’t refer to them as ‘judge power dynamics‘ or ’emotional power dynamics’, that’s what it boils down to (redacted for brevity):

One of the difficulties with studies of the distribution of power in relationships is that they are based on self-report.
A more creative methodology to assess power in relationships was developed (Wagner et al. , 1990).
The investigators asked women and men to imagine they bought a fairly expensive product and their spouse either approved or disapproved.
Respondents were asked to rate how good or bad they would feel in each situation. The discrepancy between how the person felt when the spouse disapproved versus approved represented “dependence on the other’s agreement,” which would reflect low power.

QUOTES

On differences being more provocative and marketing-friendly:

If there are more similarities than differences between women and men, why does it seem that women and men are so different?
Why do books like John Gray’s (1992) Men Are from Mars, Women Are from Venus become best sellers if men and women are not opposites?
Why did my father respond to the publication of this textbook by saying, “If you can figure out why men and women are so different, that would become a best seller!” One reason is that differences are more salient and more provocative than similarities

(the author seems to have a thing against Men Are From Mars :)):

Aristotle had one theory of sex differences. Somewhat later, John Gray (1992) set forth another in Men Are from Mars, Women Are from Venus
(…)
These two theories about the origin of sex differences are quite different and hardly comparable. The first was developed by a famous world-renowned philosopher, the second by a person with a questionable educational background.

On men needing little relationship change besides…

Another explanation for the wife demand/husband withdraw pattern is that it is wives who most often want change in the relationship.
A study asked couples about the changes that they would like to see (Heyman et al. , 2009) (…) Women wanted spouses to participate more in household chores, be more involved in parenting, express more emotion, and spend more time with them.
Men, by contrast, requested change in only one area—increased sex.

CRITICISM

Evolutionary theory could be better implemented

The author says:

Among those who scored above 700 on the SAT math exam, the ratio of male to female was 13:1 20 years ago, but it is 2.8:1 today. There also is evidence that men’s math scores are more variable than women’s math scores (Halpern et al. , 2007; Hyde et al. , 2008), and the reason for this is not clear

One possible explanation, grounded in evolutionary theory, is that men are more likely to occupy the extremes of many trait distributions—both high and low—because the potential genetic payoff for men at the high end is much greater.

Unlike women, whose reproductive success is relatively stable and biologically constrained, men can father many more offspring if they achieve high status or success. This creates evolutionary pressure for greater risk-taking and variability, especially in traits like spatial or mathematical ability that historically contributed to status or resource acquisition.

Criticism of evolutionary theory are misplaced

Says the author:

One limitation of evolutionary theory is the inability to explain behaviors that do not maximize reproductive success, such as homosexuality, adoption of children, and suicide.
A second limitation is that evolutionary theory does not account for individual differences or cultural differences in behavior

I don’t think those are limitations at all.

Evolutionary theory doesn’t claim that every single behavior must directly lead to reproduction maximixation with perfect efficiency.
Rather, it explains how traits and tendencies that were adaptive on average across ancestral environments are selected for with a tendency towards effective survival and reproduction.

Her examples are also no evidence of evolutionary theories limitation.
Instead, evolutionary theory explains adoption quite well. It’s a byproduct of people tendency to love and care for children.

And evolutionary theory doesn’t have to ‘account for individual differences’ because it’s not written anywhere that evolution should make every single organism the same.
As a matter of fact, evolution wouldn’t exist in the first place if every individual was the exact same because evolution works based on genetic differences and mutations.

And again later the author writes:

Today, I doubt that the majority of men are thinking about establishing paternity and the majority of women are thinking about their partners’ ability to support a child when deciding whether or not to engage in sex

What’s this supposed to mean, that evolutionary forces stopped operating in modern times?

The criticism also seems to stem, again, from not fully appreciating evolutionary mechanisms.
Cognitive processes meant to aid survival and reproduction are rarely conscious.

Some explanations felt ad-hoc rationalizations

For example:

Men are less tolerant than women of homosexuality because violation of the male gender role has more negative consequences. Because the male gender role has a higher status in our society, there is more to lose by violating the role.

I’m not convinced that’s the only or main reason.
Men are less tolerant than women of homosexuality because it’s more costly for a man to be gay, than for a woman to be more ‘sexually fluid’.

Also, since men aren’t nearly as sexually fluid as women, a man who’s into other men is more likely to be gay, rather than ‘bi’ or ‘open-minded‘.

Or in explaining the difference of suicide rate in China:

China is an exception to the sex difference in suicide rates (…) A major reason is the low status of women (…) Second, there are no religious sanctions against suicide

However, the ‘no religious sanctions’ doesn’t explain the difference because it applies to both men and women.
If the author had said that women tend to be more religious, which as far as I know is true, it may be more logically justified.
But it would still be a deficient explanation because many other countries with no religious sanction do not see higher suicide rates among women.

Some explanations felt over-reaching

The author dedicate a sizable portion of men’s and women’s different self-esteem levels to how teacher’s feedback impacts pupils:

When girls receive negative feedback, it is more likely to be related to their schoolwork than work-irrelevant domains; thus girls take negative feedback seriously. Boys, by contrast, are able to discount negative feedback because it usually has nothing to do with the intellectual aspects of their performance.

While this may, in part, explain the self-esteem gap and why women take evaluators’ feedback more seriously, I was no convinced, and I wished the author bracketed with more hypothetical language.

And:

Traditional gender roles partly explain these findings. In cultures where women and men have traditional roles, women gain weight due to childbearing; they also lack time for leisure exercise due to the burden of household chores

But women also have children in ‘non-traditional’ societies.
And the ‘burden of household chores’ IS exercise.

Sometimes socialization and nurture over nature

For example:

Why is boys’ play louder and more aggressive than girls’ play? One possibility is the socialization hypothesis. Children may model same-sex play from parents. Aside from each other, mothers and fathers are typically friends with people of the same sex

Sure that may account for a sliver of the observed differences.
But… How about different genes and biology?

And worse yet in my opinion was:

We are socialized to view members of the other sex as potential romantic and sexual partners.

I believe the opposite is true.
We are socialized to treat members of the opposite sex asexually but nature just ‘gets in the way’.
As a matter of fact, some guys need to un-learn socialization to succeed in dating.

PROS

• Good overview of gender psychology, it was my #1 favorite handbook on the topic
• Engaging format mixing rigorous evidence with ‘ease of reading’.
  It includes ‘take home bullet points’ to summarize the chapters, plenty of pictures, fun anecdotes, and even home exercises (I would have skipped those, but may be the author uses this as a textbook for her courses?)
• Capable author with knowledge, research experience and writing skills

REVIEW

The Psychology of Gender is a fantastic book for an overview of gender commonalities, differences, and the causes of those differences.

Although I found it to lean towards nurture and social constructionism, it made my short list of the best resources on this topic, and it’s thus far my favorite handbook.
It’s practical, almost as easy as a mainstream book, while still providing an evidence-based overview of the available literature.

It may be the resource on this topic, and it provided us with the most empirical evidence for our articles on masculinity.
And that’s the highest compliment I can pay to any book.

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