I'm going to keep this post (reasonably) short and sweet, and maybe you'll find some value in it.

Many modern people shirk at generalizations. They claim that the world is too complicated, and that nuance is necessary. They claim that to apply a generalization of a large population to an individual leads to stereotypes and bigotry.

All of those might be good points, but in actuality completely miss the point.

Let's be clear about what it is we're doing when we generalize. Rather than delve into the annoyingly complex statistics of power studies, p values, Bonferroni corrections, non-Gaussian distributions (all of which can relate to our discussion of generalizations) let's use a simple analogy that gets the point across.

You're a man on a beach without access to modern technology and cut off from civilization. You see a storm coming, and its gale winds whip you around. You run inside. The raindrops and wind are coming from all directions. It's chaos!

Or at least to the uninformed man, all he sees is chaos.

Now there's a weatherman on TV. He uses all the information at his disposal (satellite imagery, data from past hurricanes, etc.), and sees a hurricane as clear as day. He sees the spiral spokes, and understands the direction of the hurricane in general. He's not exactly perfect at predicting it 100% yet, but he can at least see how it's moving.

The motion of a given raindrop, or even a given storm inside the hurricane, is annoyingly complex. There are a thousand variables at play. To take the hurricane's general direction and apply them to a specific raindrop is stupid and foolish, due to the complexity of a small, acute situation.

But that doesn't mean the general trends don't exist. That doesn't mean that the hurricane itself is not moving in a given direction, despite the fact that you can't necessarily see that direction from a given raindrop's movements.

An extraordinarily complex system such as a hurricane has general trends when you look at it from the proper perspective. When you are knowledgeable.

You will never know exactly how a given raindrop will move, but you are better prepared and understand the general trends of the storms.

We're learning more and more every day about the dynamics of the interactions between men and women. There are nuances, sure. But many of those dynamics have been common knowledge which have passed the test of time. Nuances are constantly being brought to the surface, but let's not forget that the general trends over large populations hold true.

Speaking about the sheer complexity of the dynamics between a pair of two humans, between a pair of raindrops in a hurricane, does not dispute the simple fact that there are general trends we're observing.

TLDR: AWALT